


Feel the Sun from Both Sides

by flamethrower



Series: Re-Entry: Journey of the Whills [7]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/F, F/M, GFY, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-26
Updated: 2013-02-26
Packaged: 2017-12-03 16:40:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 32,869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/700441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flamethrower/pseuds/flamethrower
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jedi are supposed to be patient.  She can do patient—she can and will do anything to keep from being sent back to the dumpsters.  Sleeping in a real bed—having food available all the time—is a habit that Tahl is getting used to pretty fast.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Feel the Sun from Both Sides

**Author's Note:**

> Part of my self-imposed ten-year anniversary of Re-Entry, and continuing in that same "women of SW" theme I inadverdently created.

Tahl knows from the first day that she is not the ideal Initiate.  Master Flaming Song believes that she belongs in the Temple, with the Jedi, but Tahl isn’t blind or naïve.  She can read expressions and sense undercurrents, and knows that not every Jedi in the big round room is pleased with her acceptance to the creche.  

She hopes it’s not because Master Flaming Song found her in a dumpster.  A kid has to eat, and at least the food is free.  

The tiny elf thing seems to like her, but Tahl thinks maybe the tiny elf thing (Yoger? Yoba?) likes just about everyone.  She develops an immediate distaste for the one called Su Cham, who is leading the Jedi group, but Tahl minds the manners that Flaming Song has spent days drilling into her head.

The Jedi ask Tahl about her parents; she can’t remember having any.  They ask who gave Tahl her name; she tells them that it’s always been her name.  Home is—was—an abandoned building with a perpetually warm basement.  Her name, her age, her home: all of these are things that Tahl has understood to be true for as long as she has been alive.

Her clan, Ravenswing, is unlike anything she’s ever seen before.  Just her small group has twelve different species in it.  She is taller than everyone in the clan, including a young, fluffy, cute Wookiee boy.  Tahl shares a large, airy bedroom with six other girls and boys—one of them a hir—in her clan.  Everyone has a real bed and shelf and their own robe peg and storage bin. 

Tahl finds out after the first week that she’s supposed to be too old to be trained.  It makes her glad that she told Master Flaming Song that she was six Standard, not seven.  If she had said seven, he might have left Tahl where he found her.

It takes another three weeks for Tahl to realize that Flaming Song is not actually her finder’s name.  Instead, it’s something very long, with lots of Rs and no vowels.  She spends another week trying to say it, practicing under her breath, wanting to prove to him that she does belong with the Jedi, that she is worth saving.

It works.  She says his name, and he smiles, ruffles her hair, and praises her agile tongue.  Then Flaming Song takes her to Clan Master Fla, suggesting Fla direct Tahl towards the language datapacks.

Fla introduces Tahl to the packs, but she also takes Tahl to see one of the more reclusive of her new clan-mates.  Tahl thinks maybe he’s a year younger than she is, but she’s Noorian, so her ability to guess the ages of other humanoids is not great.  She practically looms over the other boy, though he doesn’t seem to mind. 

Master Fla clucks at the boy, saying something in a language that Tahl can’t quite make out.  “He doesn’t speak a word of Basic,” Master Fla then says to Tahl, clacking her beak.  “My own fault, really.  I should have paid more attention to him, and now he speaks Altiri and nothing else, and is refusing to learn from the tutors among the Padawans.  Flaming Song says you’ve got a language gift, so maybe you can be helpful.  Teach my little fledgling Basic.  You’ll likely learn Altiri along the way.”

Tahl stares after the Altiri Master when she bustles off.  Teach?  Learn?  Is she _kidding?_   Tahl knows that she can say more curses in Basic than she can write, her ability to do sums is abominable, and she doesn’t care much about where food comes from. 

This, she decides, is going to be a disaster.

“What’s your name?” Tahl asks, when the minutes drag by and the other boy does nothing more than stare at her with a quizzical look.  He has pretty blue eyes, she notices.

“Name?” he repeats, in perfect mimicry.

“Yes.  Name,” Tahl says, trying not to be frustrated.  Jedi are supposed to be patient.  She can do patient—she can and will do anything to keep from being sent back to the dumpsters.  Sleeping in a real bed—having food available all the time—is a habit that Tahl is getting used to pretty fast.

She points at herself.  “Tahl.”

“Tell,” he says, pointing at his own chest.  She resists the urge to sigh.

“No.”  Tahl shakes her head.  His eyes widen; someone must have gotten that through to him, at least.

Tahl points at herself again.  “Tahl.  _Tahl._ ”

He brightens, and it makes his eyes shine.  “Qui-Gon,” he says, pointing at his chest.  He points at her.  “Tahl-Tahl.”

She nods, catching hints of his excitement and feeling her spirits lift.  “My name is Tahl.”

He frowns, mulling over the words.  “My name…”

Tahl holds her breath, wondering if he’s going to repeat her own words again.

“…is Qui-Gon.”

Tahl grins, and so does he.  Maybe this will be fun.

They turn language into a game, pointing at objects and people and tossing translations back and forth.  Tahl picks up Altiri in fits and spurts, but Qui-Gon soaks up Basic like a metha-sponge and is chattering away at her in full sentences in a week and a half.  Tahl is starting to consider him a friend, even though he won’t stop calling her Tahl-Tahl.

Thanks to the language barrier, _everyone_ in the creche is calling her Tall-Tahl before the month is out.  She’s so frustrated by the nickname that she forgets to worry about being sent back home.

She sometimes has visits with the Healers, who work with her to try and recover more of her early childhood memories.  The most Tahl ever gets from these sessions is the knowledge that her mother’s eyes were striped pale blue and silver, a genetic rarity.

Tahl figures out pretty quick that she is different from most of the other Initiates, and it isn’t just because she came to the Temple half-grown already.  She’s good with language, but she’s even better with computer languages.  Tahl hacks the Temple mainframe for the first time when she turns seven Standard.  (Eight, really.) 

She does it because she can, but also because her best friend wants to know about his family and doesn’t know how to ask.  It turns out he’s just as much an orphan as she is, but Qui-Gon, at least, was brought to the Temple not long after his family was killed on Rishi.  She’s glad at least one of them didn’t have to learn how to out-compete rats in order to get spoiling food.  Tahl is coming to realize how awful her childhood really was, and it makes her itchy and ashamed. 

Qui-Gon sees her scratching her arm until it is bright red, and takes her hand.  “Stop that.”

She can’t explain to him how even though she knows she’s clean, the memory of the filth and the parasites keeps her awake at night.  So she just says, “Okay,” and makes sure she doesn’t scratch where anyone can see.

Tahl thinks she’s fooled him until he steals into her bunk one night after everyone else is asleep.  “I said stop that,” Qui-Gon says in a soft voice, and hugs her close.

“Doesn’t it bother you?” Tahl asks, trying not to cry.

“Doesn’t seem to bother you that I’m a human who bonded so closely with a bird species that I couldn’t speak anything but bird until you came along,” he says, and Tahl knows he means it.

“It’s not the same thing,” she retorts.

He shrugs.  “They’re going to start teaching us street and wilderness survival in three months.  You’ll be better than everyone at it, right from the start.”

Tahl stops fidgeting.  “They are?”

“Uh-huh,” Qui-Gon says, and presses his long, elegant nose against her shoulder as he tries to get comfortable.  He’s still much shorter than Tahl, and scrawny, so they can share her bunk easily.  “Master Yoda says we can learn from all the bad things that happen to us, and turn them into the greatest of things.”

She isn’t sure that scrounging will ever be a great skill, so instead she asks, “So what do you want to be great at?”

“I dunno,” he says.  “I think I’ll be a Jedi Knight, but I don’t really know _why_ yet, ya know?”

“I think Jedi Knights are supposed to help people,” Tahl says dryly.

Qui-Gon snickers.  “Well, that’s the obvious part.  But that’s not _all_ that they do.”

They fall asleep together, and Tahl drifts off without having scratched once.  He sneaks into her bed every night until she’s forgotten she ever started feeling itchy in the first place.

Tahl knows she’s different, but it’s easy to see that Qui-Gon is different from _everyone_.  He senses things through the Force that bewilder Tahl, and even the creche Masters are discomfited by her friend’s insights.

He talks to the damn plants.  The one-sided conversations just about drive her crazy.

“Well, they can speak, too,” Qui-Gon says with a frown, when she complains about his relationship with one of the trees in the creche garden.  “They just say it differently than we do.”

“People think it’s weird,” she says, flopping down on the grass beside him.

Qui-Gon is still frowning.  “Do you think it’s weird?”

“No,” Tahl says.  “Just _boring_.”

He grins and takes her hand.  “Okay.  I’ll try to be less _boring_.  But I’m not gonna stop talking to the tree unless you stop hacking the Temple systems.”

Tahl makes a face.  “Yeah, not happening.”

“I win.”

“I should never have taught you Basic,” Tahl says, but she doesn’t really mean it.  They both speak fluent Altiri now, and Tai-Lai, and Qui-Gon is charming Yoda into teaching them Old High Aurebesh.  Tahl likes the archaic language, and Master Yoda likes speaking it. 

They are learning fast, and sometimes Tahl’s brain aches with how much she’s stuffing into it, but she doesn’t ever want to stop.  She can talk to computers in at least four different programming languages, and is working on two more.  Words and language are an addiction, and even with Qui-Gon’s interest, Tahl knows she is going to out-pace him soon.  This isn’t his gift, but she suspects that, just maybe, it is hers.

The individual clans don’t hang out much, but today they are _all_ crowding the central creche garden, and Tahl is feeling claustrophobic.  She ducks out with Qui-Gon and hides in the trees, but then he gets distracted and starts tree-chatting, and it’s still so _boring_.  Tahl pats him on the head and goes to find her own quiet.

The Force warns her, but even Force warnings are not so useful when everyone around you can do Force things, too.  An insane Initiate boy leaps from the garden wall and crashes into her, sending them both tumbling into the dirt.

“I totally got you!” the strange, heavy boy on Tahl’s back crows.

“Get off me, or I’ll end you and all that you love!” Tahl shrieks back, spitting dirt.

The lump masquerading as an Initiate pauses.  “For serious?”

“Get off!” Tahl yells.  She uses one of her old street moves to knock the boy sideways, kicking him in the ribs for good measure.  Her self-defense style is effective but crude, and gives the Combat Master fits.

Tahl glowers at the lump, who is grinning in a way that says he is not sorry at all.  He has laughing hazel eyes that are just a bit slanted, thick black hair bound up in a tail, and absolutely gorgeous golden skin.  He has the build of a human from a planet with high gravity, which explains his heavy weight on her back. 

“Hi,” the boy says.  “I’m Micah.”

“Don’t you apologize when you land on people?” Tahl grouses.  He seems completely unaffected by her glower.

“Did I hurt you?” Micah asks, turning hesitant.

“…No,” she’s forced to admit.

“Then I’m not sorry,” Micah says with a grin.  “You should thank me for my skills, instead.”

Tahl isn’t impressed.  “How about I call you an asshole, and we consider us even?”

She’s never met anyone who can smile like this boy can.  That grin is now impossibly wide.  “We’re not supposed to swear.  Bad manners.”

 _“Et chuda, bon fiota!  Con thred’dede glu,”_ Tahl shoots back.  “You don’t know much about manners, anyway.”

Micah’s eyes widen, and the tips of his ears turn dull red.  “I think I understood half of that.  Want to be my new best friend, Lady-Who-Swears-Like-Goddess?”

“My name is _Tahl,_ ” she says in complete frustration.

The smile returns.  “Hey, wait, like Tall—”

“Finish that sentence and I will tell Master Fla that you were the one who said those words,” Tahl promises.

Micah holds up one hand.  “Initiate’s Honor.  You are Just Tahl.”

Tahl would have protested further at the time if she had realized that he would call her Just Tahl for the next four years.

Micah Giett is frustrating in a different way from Qui-Gon.  His goal is to become the Temple Combat Master when he grows up, and Micah feels the need to practice at every opportunity.  Micah’s random pounces and tackles and “attacks” frustrate Tahl so much that she hacks his Temple account and turns his messaging system into a nightmare. 

Micah takes it as encouragement, calling it a different sort of attack.  He fixes the mess all by himself to prove the point, even though it takes him a week.  Tahl thinks about doing it again, just because it’s a relief not to have to dodge a heavy boy with only half-grasped combat skills.

Master Allak, Tahl’s other Clan Master, sits down with her one night.  He suggests that Tahl embrace Micah’s enthusiasm, and take the opportunity to improve her own skills.

“But my skills involve breaking noses and kneecaps!” she protests.

“Well, then,” Allak says, a pleasantly neutral look on his flat, leathery face.  “He’ll certainly learn fast, won’t he?”

Tahl sleeps on the idea and walks to breakfast.  When Micah dives at her from an alcove, Tahl takes a particularly gleeful moment to use the boy’s own momentum to help him slam into the opposite wall.  He hits it face first, careens off, and lands in a heap on the floor.

Tahl steps over him so that she can stare down into his face.  “Well?”

Mica grins up at her.  He’s split his lip.  “That was awesome!”

“You need help,” she says, sighing.

“Just in getting up,” Micah counters, holding up his hand.

She stares down at him.  “No tricks, right?  I want breakfast.”

“No tricks,” Micah agrees.  “I’m hungry.  Also, my face hurts, so I’m taking the morning off from assaulting Noorian battle tanks.”

Tahl grins and helps him up.  “Let’s go get breakfast.  I need someone to steal food from.”

“You throw me at a wall, _and_ you’re gonna eat my food? You’re evil,” Micah says, a wide, happy grin on his face.  His clear hazel eyes are alight with mischief and friendly warmth.  Tahl may just be a tiny bit smitten. 

She’s never going to tell him that.  Not _ever._

Tahl still hasn’t seen Qui-Gon when she gets back from classes that afternoon.  She goes over to his bunk and finds it empty. 

She has never told the other Initiates how keen her sense of smell is, because no one wants to know if your neighbor can smell what you ate and if your menses have begun and who you were hanging around with thirty minutes ago.  She bends down and sniffs Qui-Gon’s pillow, and knows that if he slept here last night, he got up hours earlier than everyone else and hasn’t been back.

Now she’s worried.  If Qui-Gon is sick, he would have told her, since Tahl is his official note-taker, just like he’s hers if she has to go spend time in the Ward.  Still, maybe things are fine.  Qui-Gon has done lots of plant-talking the past few days, and when her friend gets distracted, he does an excellent job of it.

When the evening meal passes and she can’t even sense him nearby, Tahl starts to panic.  She finds Master Allak and, strangely, Master Yoda, who usually isn’t in the creche this late.  The sight of the ancient Master is enough to make her sense of urgency skyrocket; she spews out all of her fears to both of the Masters, because she knows her friend and things are _wrong_.

“Go to your bunk and wait,” Master Allak instructs her.  “I will tell you when we know something.”

“Yes, Master,” Tahl whispers, and watches them go.  Allak scoops up tiny Yoda so that they can travel fast, though Yoda’s eyes are shut so that he can listen to the Force.

She doesn’t sleep at all that night, and Master Allak looks grim the next morning.  Tahl obeys his command to follow him into an empty classroom a short walk from the creche.

“He’s alive.”

Tahl slumps and sits down in a chair.  “Okay.  Okay.”  She breathes deep, calming herself.  Now that she knows, it’s easier.  “But not fine.”

The grizzled old Besalisk sighs.  “No, not fine.  But, he will be.  You’ll not see your friend for a time, Initiate Tahl, but he will return to the creche when he is able.”

Tahl looked up at Allak, trying not to bite her lip.  “When?”

“That depends on him, youngling.  I know about your loose ways with the Temple data system.  Leave it be.  Don’t track him down, though I know you’ll want to.  He’s with Master Yoda and is safe.  Will you be all right?” Allak asks.  It is well known in her clan that Tahl has not developed many friendships.

Tahl nods.  Allak is sensible, but he is more a teacher to Tahl than he ever will be confidant or caretaker.  Master Fla she doesn’t care for, even though Qui-Gon adores her.  Tahl still hasn’t quite decided how she feels about Yoda, but she knows how Yoda feels about Qui-Gon, and that makes her believe that Qui-Gon will be well. 

It is months later that he comes back, and Tahl embarrasses herself by running straight for her friend and hugging him tightly.  Qui-Gon hugs her back, but his presence is darker than it used to be, and his eyes are haunted in a way they never were before. 

It makes her chest hurt.  He’s too young to look that way.  It doesn’t matter that she only has a year on him; Tahl grew up harsh and fast, and she is always going to be the eldest.

Qui-Gon is quieter of voice, too, and doesn’t speak to those around him like he used to.  Instead, her friend is watchful.  He doesn’t even talk to the plants, and that is just downright strange.

Tahl climbs into his bunk after lights-out.  He flinches and then relaxes as he recognizes her.  Tahl is momentarily startled by this.  They have been sharing beds for three years now, and he’s never been afraid of her before.  “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” he whispers back.  “I missed you.”

Tahl closes her eyes, warmed by the truth of his words.  “I missed you, too.”  She snuggles up against him and discovers that he’s hardly grown at all, whereas she is sprouting like an ungainly weed and is almost too long for their child-size bunks.

“You smell like grass.”

“Someone had to water your friends,” Tahl says, and is glad when she can feel his pleasure at her thoughtfulness.  “Qui-Gon…what happened?”

What she has always liked about Qui-Gon is his honesty.  Still, when he says, “Something got in,” and then taps his finger to his temple, it feels like a lie would be better.

“For serious?” Tahl whispers, shocked and frightened.

Qui-Gon just nods.  All at once, her teachers’ constant pushiness and gibbering about shielding makes more sense.

“Are you…are you okay?” Tahl asks.  The words feel cheap and pointless.

Qui-Gon hesitates.  She can sense him struggling with something.  “Have you ever felt sad?”

Tahl blinks a few times, surprised by the question.  Feelings are still troublesome for her.  They are either raw-edged and terrifying, or they are mute, distant sensations that are hard to name.  Some of it is her Noorian heritage, but she has heard Master Fla tell another teaching Master that Tahl is emotionally stunted.  She doesn’t think so; she can remember being happy, warm, safe, cold, hungry, angry…

“Once or twice, I guess,” Tahl allows, trying to give her best friend’s question the answer it deserves.  Maybe she felt sad once, way back in her head where memories of her lost family might still dwell.

He gives a long, shuddering sigh.  “I feel that way all the time.”

Tahl tries not to gasp.  “I’m sorry.”  She had no idea, and now she feels like a bad friend.  She didn’t know, and that isn’t okay—

“Stop that,” Qui-Gon says, in just the same way he once ordered her to stop scratching as memories tried to overtake her.  “It isn’t your fault.  It’s not anyone’s fault.  I just…”  He takes her hand and puts it on his chest, where she can feel his heart beating beneath her fingertips.  “I’ve always felt empty here, like I don’t connect with anybody.  I just didn’t pay much attention to it until—until lately.”

“How can I help?” Tahl asks, scared all over again for him.  She can’t imagine feeling that way, and didn’t even when she slept alone in the echoing ruin of an old, crumbling building.

“You already do help,” Qui-Gon says with a faint smile.  “You’re my friend.”

Tahl sighs and hugs him close, not letting go.  She doesn’t know what else to do.

In short order they are back in their familiar tangle of arms and legs, ready to share the bunk for the night.  Tahl pats his back and pets his hair, and doesn’t comment at all on his tears.

 

*          *          *          *

 

There is a massive, brown-furred Wookiee in the creche, speaking with Master Fla.  Tahl hesitates in the doorway, curious.  She has just finished helping her best friend move out of the dorm they have shared for the last four years.  Qui-Gon was chosen to be the Padawan of Master Dooku, a stern-looking human Jedi Master who is gaining a reputation as an efficient negotiator in the Outer Rim territories.  She is happy for Qui-Gon, because he is happy, but for the first time, she knows she is going to sleep alone in her bunk every night.

The Wookiee is wearing a pale robe the color of desert sand, embroidered along the sleeve ends and down the front edges with ornamental glyphs.  She recognizes him as Master Tyvokka only because she has been following the news about his negotiation of the Vermeeri Treaty in the Expansion Region.  His last Padawan, Knight Plo Koon, is one of Qui-Gon’s many older friends, though Tahl has not spent much time in the young Kel Dor’s company.

When he turns and begins to walk in her direction, Tahl decides to greet him.  She can’t speak Shyriiwook properly—Noorian throats just can’t handle the strain—but she knows the phonetics of the language and wants to practice.

 _“Good day, Master Tyvokka,”_ she says.

The Wookiee halts in surprise.  [Your pronunciation is terrible, little one.]

Tahl nods.  _“Of course it is.  I’m not built to speak Shyriiwook.  This is as good as it gets.”_

Tyvokka chuckles.  [It is, hmm?  Perhaps you just need a better teacher.]

Tahl draws herself up to her full height, miffed.  _“I didn’t have a Shyriiwook teacher.  I learned the tongue of the tree people by myself.”_

The Wookiee gives her a considering look.  [Did you, now?]

 _“Of course I did,_ ” Tahl continues, ready to prove it.  _“Xaczik is harder, but I can manage well enough.  Thykarann is the best, though, because it evolved to make allowances for tech speak.”_

[What else do you know, little cub?] Tyvokka asks, and she senses that she has his full attention.  It’s a strange feeling; it makes her feel warm inside, like sharing a bunk for the night with her best friend.

As if compelled, Tahl tells him every language she’s learned, or is studying, and then starts babbling away about computer languages and coding.  Tyvokka listens with complete, unfeigned interest, asking questions that let Tahl know that he has his own interest in code lines and mainframes.

[What an intelligent cub you are,] Tyvokka says at last, smiling at her.  His eyes are the same shade of brown as his fur.  [How many years have you seen?]

 _"Ten,”_ Tahl says, and for the first time she doesn’t like the sound of the lie.

[I feel the need to meditate, but I would like it if we could speak again tomorrow.]

 _“Sure!”_ Tahl says, enthused.  With Qui-Gon gone, there is no one else in the creche who is capable of understanding her when she is talking endlessly about her favorite subject.  It will be nice to have an older friend, like Qui-Gon does.

When he comes back the next morning, Tyvokka asks her to become his Padawan.

Tahl is so stunned by the question that it takes her a full five minutes to remember to say yes.

 

*          *          *          *

 

There are lots of things Tahl can say when she sees her best friends again.  “How are you?” or “It’s been so long!” or even, especially in Qui-Gon’s case, “You are _huge,_ ” because he is suddenly long and lean, and now they are the same height.

Instead, she stares aghast at his face and squeaks, “What in the Force happened to your _nose?”_

Qui-Gon winces, rubbing the nose in question with a self-conscious look.  “I got hit in the face.”

Micah snickers.  “That’s putting it mildly.”

“Shut up, you,” Qui-Gon says, elbowing Micah in the ribs.  Micah grins and shoves him back. 

“Tell me what happened,” Tahl begs.  For the first time since they showed their new braids to each other, they are in the Temple together.  She has missed two birthdays and the year-end fete that Coruscant and the Temple celebrates every year.  If their missions have been anything like hers with Master Tyvokka, they each have enough tales and mishaps to fill a week solid.

“There’s not much to tell, really,” Qui-Gon protests.  “There was a riot on Kalnesh, and Master and I wound up right in the middle of it.  I had a moment to choose between a blaster shot or a board to the face, so I chose the board.”  He looks chagrined.  “Right after that, I realized that the blaster would have hurt less.”

Micah slaps him on the back.  “At least Master Dooku would have actually healed the blaster shot.”

“He didn’t heal your nose?” Tahl asks, looking at Qui-Gon in concern.  There has been an undertone to his letters that Tahl had not missed, no matter that Qui-Gon hadn’t actually said anything.

“Of course he did!” Qui-Gon says.  “He just—he’s not a very good healer.”

“I’ll say.”  Micah nods.  “You’re lucky it’s not sideways.”

Qui-Gon looked horrified and clasps both hands over his nose.  “You’re an ass.”

Tahl bites her tongue to keep from laughing at them.  “Come on, both of you.  I want real food in the commissary, and tea, and _dessert_.”

“But then we’ll get spoiled, and not recognize the quality of bad field rations and poison dinners!” Micah mock-protests.

“I prefer to be spoiled,” Qui-Gon mutters, stalking ahead of them with a grim look on his face.  “Three diplomatic treaties, six poisoning attempts.”

“Shit, Qui.”  Micah whistles as he darts to catch up.  “We only managed one.  Dooku must be a popular guy.”

Qui-Gon frowns.  “Don’t call me that, please.”

“Well, shall it be Gon, then?  C’mon, Qui-Gon; everyone needs a snappy nickname!  Just like Tall-Tahl!”

Tahl shakes her head.  “No, Micah.”  If he gets the other Padawans to start that again, she will program the water system in his quarters to ensure he never takes a hot bath in this lifetime.  His Master, Orna kel Ta, would consider it a justly earned punishment.

“I will hit you again if you keep it up,” Qui-Gon promises.

“But you call me Mic!” Micah actually looks offended.  “How come I have to deal with a short name, but you two don’t?”

“It’s hard to get much shorter than Tahl, Mic,” Tahl says, just to make Micah twitch. Micah sticks his tongue out at her.

Qui-Gon shakes his head.  “How old are you, ten?”

“How old are you, fifty?” Micah shoots back.

“I think I’m starting to regret ever introducing the two of you,” Tahl says, but that’s not true.  She had been delighted to see Micah sitting with Qui-Gon the day he had gotten back from his first mission with Dooku.  She had joined them, announced the results of her own first mission, and was startled by their relieved, giddy laughter.  They had been twelve; Tahl was thirteen and thinking about admitting her true age to her Master.  (When she finally gave in and told Tyvokka, he had laughed and called her his devious little cub.)

A year and a half has passed since that moment, and Qui-Gon doesn’t seem to have developed a better relationship with Dooku in all that time.  Tahl eyes him as they ride the turbolift down to the commissary, worrying in silence. 

“So he tries to pick me up,” Micah is saying later that evening.  They are in a quiet lounge with the door privacy-locked, to keep out curious Initiates, prying Masters, and busy-body Padawans.  The commissary was crowded, so Tahl suggested swiping trays full of food and finding a quiet place, an idea that Qui-Gon and Micah had fervently agreed to.

“Did the idiot break his spine, trying to lift your bulk?” Qui-Gon asks, and ducks a thrown berry.

“Stop wasting food,” Tahl says, catching the berry with the Force before it can hit the floor.  She redirects it; Micah opens his mouth obligingly and chomps down with a wink in her direction.  She rolls her eyes.

“No, but you could tell he was regretting the attempt,” Micah finally says.  “The benefits of planets with lower gravity, folks:  I am rock, unmovable!”

“So then what happened, after your pirate friend failed to toss you as he’d threatened?” Tahl asks.

“He staggered back, and Master Orna assisted him in falling down.  Then she, ah,” Micah’s cheeks flush, “she stepped on him in a very specific place.”

Qui-Gon winces.  “I’m not sparring with her anymore.”

Tahl snickers.  “Wusses.  This is why the Combat Master tells you to wear a protective cup any time you think you’re going into a fight.”

“Right,” Micah snorts.  “Do you know what it would be like to wear one of those all the time?”

“Try wearing a bra all the time,” Tahl responds dryly.

“Uh, yeah.”  Qui-Gon gestures vaguely in her direction.  “I didn’t want to be rude, but aren’t you…uhm…”

“Humongous,” Micah says.

Tahl sighs and looks down at her chest.  Despite her slim figure, high activity level, and healthy diet, her breasts are insisting upon being…bountiful.  She has had to change the way she performs certain combat maneuvers, because her breasts get in the damn way when she tries to throw a punch.

“If that is how you speak to girls, you are going to die a virgin,” Qui-Gon tells Micah in complete solemnity.

“Shut up,” Micah says, grinning.  “s’better than _you’re_ doing.”

“Well, that’s good, because I,” Qui-Gon keeps speaking, but the words become very faint.

“What was that?  Couldn’t hear you,” Micah says, leaning closer with a hand cupped around his ear.

“I like _boys_ ,” Qui-Gon admits, and then turns bright red.

“Oh.”  Micah shrugs.  “Okay, then.  But I refuse to be your boyfriend.”

Qui-Gon sputters out a laugh, and Tahl grins.  “Well, maybe not just boys,” Qui-Gon says, with more confidence than before.  “But it’s easier to be comfortable around them, and I stutter like a moron around girls, anyway.”

“You don’t stutter like a moron in front of me,” Tahl points out.

Qui-Gon makes a face.  “Well, of course not.  You’re practically my sister,” he says, which makes Tahl happy.  She thinks of Qui-Gon as family, too.

“What about you, Micah?” she asks.

“Girls.  Girls all the way.  I only have enough love of the penis for my own.”

They both laugh, and along with the warmth of Qui-Gon’s admission, Tahl feels a tiny frisson of hope.  She realizes it and then swears to herself, because apparently she is still crushing on Micah Giett.

“How ‘bout you, Tahl?  What gives you the happy zing?” Micah asks.

“Happy zing?” Qui-Gon smacks himself in the forehead.  “Thank all the gods that you’re not trying to be a diplomat, Mic, because you would be our downfall.”

“Punching things is better,” Micah agrees, unoffended.  “Well, Tahl?”

“I haven’t really decided yet,” Tahl says, so that she doesn’t have to admit to anything.  Micah might not notice, but it’s scary what Qui-Gon can figure out from just a few otherwise innocent words, and she wants to keep this silly crush to herself.  “I haven’t ruled anything out, at least.”

Tahl gets back to her quarters after her curfew, but it is an accident.  They literally talked until they fell asleep in a big pile, reminiscent of how she and Qui-Gon used to sleep in a single bunk.

[Did you have a nice time, cub?] her Master asks.  He is sitting cross-legged on the floor in the living area, a scattering of datapads surrounding him like the rays of a setting sun.

Tahl smiles, rubbing grit from her eyes.  It is still a few hours until dawn, and it remains to be seen if Tyvokka will allow her to continue sleeping until their normal rising time.  “Yes, Master,” she replies in Basic.  She’s too tired for the usual butchered Shyriiwook she uses when they are alone together.  “It was good to catch up.  I’m sorry I came back so late.”

He waves away her apology.  [I knew you were well, and you are a responsible Padawan who meant no disrespect.  Continue your rest.  You may help me finish writing these damned reports in the morning.]

She grins and bids him goodnight.  Unlike her friends, Tahl likes to work on the mission reports.  It’s fun to see how much surfeit of language she can cram into each one for the High Council’s eventual review.  Master Su Cham’s veins tend to throb when he sees Tahl’s reports, and she knows it makes Master Yoda just a bit gleeful to see it.

Tahl gets to spend time in Master Dooku’s company while they both watch Qui-Gon and Micah spar.  Micah is swearing up a storm because Qui-Gon won’t stay on the ground, and though Micah can manage leaps and bounds, he is still a grounded fighter.

“What nonsense,” Dooku is muttering under his breath.  “There is nothing wrong with the Second Form, Padawan.”

Tahl eyes the Master but does not say anything, even though she vehemently disagrees.  Qui-Gon is an excellent practitioner of the Fourth, and she knows he only feels comfortable in his own skin when he’s flying.  The Second is a good basic drilling form, but it’s not her friend’s strength.

Micah does something unfamiliar, and Qui-Gon winds up on the floor, panting, with his lightsaber several feet away.  “Was that from the Sixth?” he gasps, staring up at Micah.

“Yeah!” Micah grins.  “Wasn’t that awesome?”

Dooku harrumphs, unimpressed.  Tahl likes him less and less.

Later, Tahl has a private sparring lesson with her Master.  She likes the Fifth form, but is not shy about throwing in street-style fighting if she thinks it’s appropriate.  Tyvokka enjoys the challenge and encourages the blended combat style.

“Master, what is your opinion of Master Dooku?” she asks, while calling her lightsaber back to her hand.  It’s the same maneuver Micah used on Qui-Gon that afternoon, and Tahl is embarrassed to have been caught by it after witnessing it first-hand.

Tyvokka likes to give his opinion of things, whether his opinion is wanted or not.  Today, she senses sudden hesitation.  [Why do you wish to know, Padawan?]

Tahl gives him a startled look at the formal tone.  _“Out of concern for my nestmate, Master,”_ she returns in Shyriiwook, reverting to Wookiee formality just to display her confusion.

[Explain, cub,] Tyvokka says, shutting down his lightsaber and gesturing for an end to their spar.

Tahl complies, attaching her lightsaber to her belt.  “Well…it seems as if Qui-Gon and Master Dooku are not very well-matched.”

[They are not,] Tyvokka says in a blunt, angry voice.

“Master?”  She didn’t expect to find her opinion echoed.

[It is the opinion of myself and several others that Dooku did not listen to the Force when choosing his first Padawan.]  Tyvokka sighs.  [Master Yoda spoke in favor of the pairing, and that was enough to quell our initial doubts.  But you should know that now, even Master Yoda is displeased with his former Padawan.  Dooku is trying to force the boy to become like him, and refuses to foster young Qui-Gon’s existing strengths.]

“If the pairing is bad, why is Qui-Gon not assigned another Master?” Tahl asks, though she suspects she knows why.

[It is the Padawan’s duty to request a new Master if it is believed that the pairing is not beneficial.  Young Qui-Gon has not done so, so his apprenticeship continues.  The Council will not intervene unless Dooku is causing his Padawan true harm.]

Tahl has seen enough to know that her friend is withdrawn when in Dooku’s company.  Only when he is alone with her or Micah does the strength of his personality shine forth.  Dooku is openly disdainful of the talents he does not approve of, though Qui-Gon does his best to shrug off each disparaging comment.  “That isn’t good enough.”

[Qui-Gon is not being physically damaged, and his training progresses at an acceptable pace.  Neglect is not considered to be harmful,] Tyvokka rumbles.

“Neglect _is_ harm,” Tahl retorts.  She knows that better than almost anyone.

[You are a wise cub,] Tyvokka says in agreement.  [Continue to be his companion, my Padawan.  You can be the support your nestmate needs, that his Master cannot provide.]

 _Cannot, or will not?_ Tahl wonders, and follows her Master off of the mat for a shared meditation.

 _“I am lucky to have you, Master,”_ Tahl says before they begin.

Tyvokka smiles, and caresses her cheek with his rough, leathery palm.  [And I am grateful for you as well, Padawan.]

 

*          *          *          *

 

They are afield for six months, and it’s been violent for the last month of their travels.  Tahl is aching nonstop by the time she and Master Tyvokka return to the Temple.  She was injured, but it wasn’t critical, so she insisted they stay for the remainder of the peace process.  The results were worth it, but now Tahl is wishing she had returned home with the first team.  For such a tiny organ, a damaged gall bladder can put up quite a fuss.  It’s fortunate that she has two, since her physiology actually requires them to survive.

Still, it means that she has a stint in the Ward to look forward to.  Tahl is not happy about her first surgery.

“Aw, you’ll be fine,” Micah says the evening before.  “Go to sleep, wake up with new parts, enjoy a week of leisure.”

“You’ve already done this too often,” Tahl tells him, amused.

“The price of my calling,” Micah says in a fake mournful tone.

Just before the Healers put her to sleep, Tahl has the worst feeling of anxiety, a great rushing awareness of _something wrong_.  Tyvokka senses her fear, and pats her hand.  [All will be well, Padawan.  I will see you when you awaken.]

She trusts her Master, and the Healers, so Tahl nods.  “Okay.”

Then, for far too long a time, there is complete darkness.

 

*          *          *          *

 

She has nightmares that are without end.  She feels awful pain in her limbs and head, and hears screaming and cackling that chills her to the core.  Phantom hands touch her all the time with icy fingers.  She sees nothing but darkness.

She is completely alone. 

She has never felt such terror.

_–oh, Padawan—_

_Tahl—_

_dear one—_

She floats in silence and wonders if she is going to die.

“—can’t promise anything, but I think the worst of it is—”

“—missing all the fun, T—”

“—heart rate is stable.  Maybe in a few days—”

She draws in a breath and screams for what seems like forever, tired of blackness and only bits and pieces of familiar voices.

_TahlTahlTahlTahlTahlTahl—_

_Master_ , she thinks.

“—either you behave or I’m sedating you!”

A blinding light burns her eyes, and she hisses at it.

“Good pupil response.  I think she’s coming out of it, Iessa.”

“Thank the Force for that.”

 

*          *          *          *

 

Tahl awakens in stages, and each time she gains awareness, the leaden feeling in her arms and legs is a bit less.  She hasn’t managed to get her eyes open yet, but by the Force, she is going to manage it today.

She opens her eyes and finds not her Master, but Qui-Gon.  He has a black eye that is several days old, and a new, angry red scar decorating the right side of his jaw.  He looks older, somehow, for all that he’s just fourteen.

“…look awful,” Tahl says.  It was supposed to be a whole sentence, but that’s the best she can do.

Qui-Gon smiles at her and squeezes her hand gently.  He has warm fingers.  Warm fingers are nice.  “You don’t look so great yourself, T,” he says.

She frowns.  “T?”

“Micah started it; blame him,” Qui-Gon says, and helps her sip water from a straw when she becomes aware that she is ferociously thirsty.  Her throat aches, and feels raw and phlegm-y.

“Always do,” Tahl says, hoping she is managing to smile at him.  Her face feels stiff.  “Happened?”

Qui-Gon starts massaging her fingers.  Bliss.  “Turns out you’re one of the point zero two one six anomalies,” he says.  “You’re one of a very, very small group of people in the galaxy whose allergy to anesthetics doesn’t show up on the standard screens.”

Oh.  Tahl blinks at him, nonplussed.  “Oh,” she says aloud.  No family history.  They wouldn’t have known to run the secondary tests.  “I thought…felt…strange.”

“Right before they put you under?”  Qui-Gon nods at her.  “Yeah.  Mic says that Master Tyvokka is moping in the worst way, because he thinks it’s his fault.”

Tahl manages to lift both eyebrows.  Maybe.  “Is _not_ ,” she says.  “Where is my Master?”

“Sedated,” Qui-Gon says, with an apologetic smile.  “He was here until you started responding to him, and we knew that you were going to be okay.  Micah is with him, or you’d be bookended by the both of us.”

She finally remembers.  “You weren’t here.  Offworld?”

“We got back yesterday.  I…came down here the second I had the chance.”

He isn’t saying something.  Tahl knows this. 

Before she can puzzle out what Qui-Gon isn’t saying, his Master sweeps into the room.

He does not seem pleased to see either of them.

“Padawan,” Dooku says.  “I did not give you leave to come here.”

Tahl watches Qui-Gon draw himself up.  His entire posture would scream defiance, were it not for the carefully neutral expression on his face.  “I didn’t ask you for permission to come.  I’m not on restriction, or due for classes, so acquiring your leave wasn’t necessary.”

Tahl can’t decide if she’s awed by the precise diplomatic phrasing, or if she wants to giggle like a lunatic at the vaguely thwarted expression that appears on Dooku’s face. 

Then it vanishes, and Dooku frowns.  “Nevertheless, there are better uses of your time to be had.”

She can feel the slow burn of Qui-Gon’s outrage on her behalf.  She’s impressed as hell when it doesn’t show in his eyes.  Instead, he only says, “Some things are more important.”

Tahl wants to hug her friend, and throw things at Dooku.  She hasn’t wanted to throw things at people since she was seven and threw a datapad at Master Fla’s head.

The Master doesn’t leave without one last verbal strike.  “You can make time for your playmates later,” Dooku says, and turns and leaves.

Qui-Gon slumps, as wrung out as if they had just battled.  “Sorry.”

Tahl shakes her head, refuting the need for an apology.  “Always like that?”

“Well, no; I did really good, right then.  Usually there’s screaming,” Qui-Gon admits.

She can’t find it in her heart to blame him.  She is still a bit too addled to be as angry as she should be, both for Dooku’s dismissal of her and his callous disregard for his Padawan.  “He disapproves of everything you do,” Tahl says.

“No,” Qui-Gon says, his frown not enough to cover up the frustrated sadness in his eyes.  “He disapproves of _me._ ”

“Then he’s a fuckhead,” Tahl says.  It seems that her language filter is not functioning.

Qui-Gon snorts.  “Perhaps.”  He pats her hand and manages to give her a convincing smile.  “Get some rest.  One of you has to be coherent, and Master Tyvokka has already tried to play hoverball using a Healer as the ball.”

Tahl’s breath leaves her in a faint gasp.  She must have been in big trouble.  Tyvokka only loses his serenity if he thinks his cub is in danger.  “That’s why he’s sedated?”

“Up to his furry gills,” Qui-Gon confirms.

She doesn’t see Qui-Gon during her recovery.  Micah tells her it is because Dooku is running their friend ragged, assigning him so much work that he barely has time to sleep or eat.  Tahl sighs, knowing a punishment when she hears it.  It’s just such a damn _petty_ one! 

She isn’t doing well, and she’ll be the first to admit it.  Her stamina is not returning the way that it should; she gets winded easily, and her heart pounds from exertion.

As she recovers, and the overwhelming exhaustion fades, her terror of sleeping grows.

Tahl sits up in her bed at night, burning candles for warmth and comfort—and most importantly, for their light.  She can’t shut her eyes without remembering endless nightmares.  Instead, she reads, or does research, or meditates.  She has yet to return to class, so there is no one to notice but Micah and her Master.

Micah looks terrified for her.  That makes her feel worse, but she doesn’t quite know how to explain what she’s so afraid of.

Meditation starts to fail as exhaustion returns.  Tahl lies in bed and just wants to weep.  She doesn’t want to go back to that place and she doesn’t know what else to do.

Tyvokka comes into her room, sits down next to her, and pets her hair.  [Tell me what troubles you, cub,] he says.

It breaks her fragile hold on her self-control.  “It was so _dark_ ,” she wails, and in desperation, projects everything she felt while trapped in an anesthetic-induced coma.

Tyvokka howls sadly.  [My dear Padawan,] he says, and pulls her into his arms.  She cries into his soft fur while he holds her and rumbles endearments in all three of the Wookiee languages.  He holds her until she falls asleep, keeping dreams at bay, and in the morning she wakes up feeling rested for the first time since before the surgery.

She blinks in the dim morning light, and asks, “They did actually replace my gall bladder, right?  I’d really hate to have to go through this again,” and Tyvokka laughs.

Her Master holds her every night to help her sleep, and gradually she overcomes that crippling terror.  He teaches her new techniques for controlling her dreams, and stays with her as she reluctantly puts herself to sleep to practice.

When Tahl is cleared for physical activity, she spars with Micah and discovers that she’s gone blasted _skittish._   She sits down on the mat and feels like sobbing all over again.  She used to defend her very life with her hands and feet (and sometimes teeth), and now if a fist comes her way, she curls up to defend her vulnerable insides.

“It’ll get better,” Micah promises, sitting with her.  “It will.”

She wants to believe him, but right now she can’t see past this very large hurdle.

[I think you should change your focus,] Tyvokka says one evening, after they have meditated together.  She needed the quiet; Tahl has discovered that she is combat skittish with him, too, and that makes her ashamed.

“What do you mean?” she asks, trying to ignore a sharp stab of fear.  It’s only been a few weeks.  Tyvokka is a patient Master, and would work with her for much longer than this before deciding to ditch her.

[Foolish Padawan,] he rumbles, his brown eyes stern.  [I would never ‘ditch’ you.]

She ducks her head.  “Sorry, Master.  I know that.”

[As to what I mean…]  Tyvokka climbs to his feet; Tahl follows him into the kitchen, where he makes her a perfect cup of red tea.  She sips it in delight.  Wookiees are not fond of tea, and Tahl treasures the fact that he cares enough to make it just for her.

[Traditionally, there were three different types of Knight: the Guardians, the Consulars, and the Sentinels.  You won’t hear those terms very often, because for the most part they do not apply to the Order as it exists today.  We raise our younglings and Padawans to employ the skills of every path, and very few focus on one aspect over the others.  Our modern concentrations tend to be the Healers, the diplomats, the Corps, the pilots, and so on.]

[But,] he says, giving Tahl a peculiar look, [I think you should become one of those rare few.  You have always had a great gift for languages, and have applied it to your historical research in a way that astounds your instructors.]

Tahl blushes at the praise.  She’d had no idea her teachers thought so.

[Master Yoda is one of our few dedicated Consulars; young Master Jocasta Nu is another.  Yoda’s strength has always been teaching, whereas Nu is a dedicated caretaker for the Archives.  The Council is already discussing naming her Chief Librarian if Master Yaddle chooses to accept a Council seat.]

Tahl considers it.  “So I would be…in the field less, and in the Library more.”

Tyvokka nods.  [I have been training you as I did Plo, your brother Padawan, to be a Knight with many skills to utilize.  And…] he drops his eyes.  [I will admit to granting you this option with selfish motives, Padawan.  I fear for you, and for what could become of you if you are injured on a mission.]

Tahl shivers.  It’s something she has found herself dwelling on, as well.  Yes, in the Temple they know how to treat her for the allergy.  However, if she were incapacitated during a mission, with no familiar Healer nearby…it is something that could easily cost Tahl her life. 

[Your life would not be free of risk, though I daresay the risk would be diminished,] Tyvokka warns.  [You cannot shirk of your physical training.  We _will_ get your past this stumbling block, Padawan, and you will knock Padawan Giett onto his rear before the month is out.]

That makes Tahl smile.  “He deserves it,” she says, but she is also thinking.  Tahl has never had a great obsession with the Library itself, though she plunders the stacks willingly enough from her own remote terminal.  She is working on a re-translation of the Goerm Principles on her own time because the current Temple translation in Basic is wrong, wrong, _wrong._   From what her Master is saying, a change in focus would put greater emphasis on her skills, not less.

“All right,” Tahl says.  “I’ll be a Consular.”

 

*          *          *          *

 

It’s not an easy path.  In fact, shifting her focus so completely to the cerebral is such a change that Tahl feels mental inertia for weeks.

She becomes accustomed to the Library itself; she is already intimately familiar with the data Archives.  The first time she puts her hand on true paper, unrolling a fading, aged scroll in the Vaults, Tahl finds that she is overcome with elation.  _Yes,_ the Force seems to whisper.  _This is who you are._

Micah laughs at her new addiction to parchment, and makes a lot of comments about how she always smells of dust.  It’s amusing at first, and then annoying, and the last crack about her new hobby is what pushes Tahl past the last surgery-wrought barriers in her combat training, and she lays her friend out on the mat and considers kicking him for good measure.

He just grins up at her.  “What took you so damn long?” he asks, and Tahl smiles and helps him to his feet.

Tyvokka continues her lightsaber training, and they still write and review code together.  However, he cannot follow her down much of her new path, and Tahl finds herself learning from a slew of new teaching Masters.  Yoda she is already familiar with, but there is also Jocasta Nu, Master Yaddle, Unta Sabree, and sage Oppo Rancisis.

Historically, she is also in good company.  Yoda and Yaddle, as Consulars and the last of their species, have been famous for centuries already.  There is also Satele Shan, Syo Bakarn, Ostar-Gal, and even names from the great Sith War—Odan-Urr and Nomi Sunrider. 

She works well with Jocasta Nu until the first time they disagree, and then Tahl discovers that Master Nu can be a vicious bitch.  It shocks her to find someone in a Librarian’s position with such inflexible standards.  Tahl is so incensed that she stays up until dawn three nights in a row, compiling the evidence to prove her argument factually correct.  She and Nu aren’t friends after that, but at least the older woman thinks twice before belittling Tahl’s skills.

She relates the story to Micah, who just shrugs.  “She and Dooku are apparently like this,” he says, holding up his hand with his fingers crossed.  “Like seeks like, and all that crap.”

“Then why are _we_ friends?” Tahl asks with a grin, and ducks when he swats at her.  She tries to keep things cavalier between them, because her thrice-bedamned crush has grown to embarrassing levels.  Micah, bless and curse him, spars without a shirt.  It’s…distracting.

Tahl is in-Temple more than either of her friends now, as well.  Micah is out a lot with Master Orna, working with Judicial in an advisory position that seems to entail combat more often than not.  He loves it, and thrives on the chaos, while Master Orna does her best to keep him balanced.

No one manages to see more skirmishes than Dooku and Qui-Gon.  Tahl doesn’t like it, but even she has to admit that the more harrowing the mission, the more Qui-Gon and Dooku get along.  They work best together when there is no time for leisure.

Granted, the moment they return, Dooku is sniping and surly again.  Tahl has outgrown the desire to throw things at him, but now it’s a true challenge to resist the urge to use her datamonger ways to make the Master’s life difficult.

Dooku is not in the Temple today; he’s been sent on a solo mission.  Tahl thinks the Council made him go alone for a reason.  Qui-Gon is more relaxed than she has seen him in months. 

He has kept up with her in height for the last few years, but now Qui-Gon is starting to broaden at the shoulders.  He’s outgrown cute and is heading straight into spectacular territory, especially with those beautiful eyes, but Tahl refuses to look at him as dating material.  She has enough problems trying not to think about Micah that way.

They go to the salle in the evening, when it’s empty, and Tahl helps him wrap his hands for a session with a sandbag.  “Tight enough?” she asks, slapping the tape that is securing his fingers together.

He flexes his hands.  He has beastly large paws that rival Tyvokka’s, which makes her suspect that he isn’t done growing.  “Tight enough.  You going to join me?”

Tahl shakes her head.  “Altered fighting style; flats of my hands and heels of my palm, to lessen the chance of physical damage.  I’m not as keen on tossing myself upon the mercy of the Healers as you are.”

She shows him one of the new strikes when he asks, and then he hits the hanging bag with a satisfyingly loud smack.  “Huh.  S’not bad,” he says, and then proceeds to _obliterate_ the sandbag in less than ten minutes. 

Tahl stares.  The Combat Master is either going to praise him, or have an absolute fit about destruction of equipment and sand all over the floor.   “Where in the hell’d you learn to do that?” 

He grins.  “Pirates.”

“Are they still in one piece?”

Qui-Gon laughs at her.  “That particular band of rogues is not a bad bunch, really.  They have standards.”

“Standards?” Tahl questions.  She does miss rough fieldwork, some days.  “Like what?”

He strips the tape from his hands.  His knuckles are bright red, but there’s no blood.  “No slave-taking or selling, for starters.  No killing kids.  Reduced ransoms based on family income.”

“Huh,” Tahl says, and then sees the spark of mischief in his eyes.  “Qui-Gon Jinn, are you making disreputable friends?”

“Well, never know when you might need some,” he says in a light, casual tone that doesn’t fool her one bit.

“Is that why you never petitioned for a new Master?”

Qui-Gon’s expression is guarded when he looks at her.  “Partly.  I like what we’re doing, Tahl.  Besides, Jedi like us are in short supply.  Do you know how few working pairs actually venture into the Outer Rim territories?”

She shakes her head.  “Is it Council-limited?”

“No,” Qui-Gon says, and sits down on the bench next to her to explain.  “No one wants to go.  Even if you’re inside Republic borders, it’s a rough place.  Jedi aren’t given automatic respect, and Judicial patrols are haphazard.  It’s dangerous to be on the right side of the law.  If you’re outside the Republic, you have to deal with all of that, plus the Hutts, and the slavers who sell on both sides of the border to whomever pays the most.”

“If you’re trying to convince me that the Outer Rim is awesome, you are failing badly,” Tahl says.

“But it is, Tahl.  There are a lot of good people out there, and they deserve our help just as much as the Inner Rim folk.  Dooku is teaching me what I need to know to continue the Outer Rim missions as a Knight.”

She nods in acceptance.  If Qui-Gon has found his calling, as Tahl has found hers, then it is not for her to judge.  “And the other reason you didn’t petition?”

“He’s my Master,” Qui-Gon replies with a faint smile.

“Okay,” Tahl says, and leans against him.  “Let’s do something fun.”

“Like what?”

Tahl can’t quite decide, so she takes him back to her quarters and dyes his hair purple.  The expression on his face when he looks in the mirror for the first time is priceless; she manages to get a holo of it right before he chases her in circles around the living room and then tickles her within an inch of her life.

 

*          *          *          *

 

This time, she is the one holding vigil.  Micah is deathly pale and too still, and she wants to shake him to make him wake the hell up.  Master Orna is also injured, still being worked on by Healers who are frantic to keep her alive.

Tahl sighs and takes her friend’s hand.  They are lucky to be here at all, judging by what she overheard the lone surviving Judicial officer tell Master Yoda and Master Su Cham. 

“When someone orders you to abandon ship, you’re supposed to actually leave,” Tahl whispers, wiping her eyes.  “Please wake up, you idiot.”

To her surprise, he does.  “…m’your idiot, right?” he asks, looking at her in a bleary haze of pain and drugs.

“Yes,” she says, and smiles at him.  “You’re my favorite of all the idiots in the galaxy.”

Micah is released from the Healers the same day that Qui-Gon comes back alone, looking heartsick and visibly bruised.  “What the fuck happened to you?” he asks Micah the moment he enters the room.

“Ship go boom,” Micah says with a grin, reigning supreme from the couch in his quarters.  Tahl has elected to stay with him for the next few days, since Master Orna is still confined to the Healers’ Ward.  “What about you, Qui-Gon?”

“I…” Qui-Gon rubs his face, and Tahl sees his hand shake with exhaustion.  “Slavers.”  He glances around with cautious curiosity, while both Micah and Tahl stare at him in bewildered concern.  “Can I…can I stay with you guys tonight?  Dooku won’t be back for another few days, and…”

“Sure,” Micah says quickly, sharing a worried look with Tahl.  “Long as you want, you know that.”

“Great,” Qui-Gon says, though his expression doesn’t change.  “I’m just…shower, right?”  He points towards the closed door next to the kitchen.

“Have at it.  I’m limited to sponge baths for now.”  Micah’s joke falls flat because Qui-Gon doesn’t notice it, and Tahl is too busy clenching her jaw shut.  The moment the door closes, she turns to Micah. 

“If I don’t make it back before he gets done, _stall_ him.  Talk about the fucking weather if you have to, but don’t let him leave this room.”  She’s learned how to be stern and demanding from Tyvokka. 

Micah nods.  “Whoever you’re getting, run.”

Tahl isn’t sure her feet ever touch the ground.  She makes it to Master Yoda’s quarters in what has to be a Temple record. 

Yoda greets her at the door, looking up at her in puzzlement.  “Padawan Tahl.  Time for our lesson, it is not.  Sitting with young Padawan Giett, are you?”

“Yes, Master,” she says, and then gasps for air.  “Not that, though,” she manages.  “Qui-Gon’s home.  Not Dooku.  He’s…” she waves her fingers at her temple.  “Qui-Gon said slavers.  Don’t think Dooku helped him.”

Yoda scowls, a fierce expression that Tahl has never before seen on the ancient Master’s face.  “Read the preliminary mission report, I have.  Take me to him you will,” he orders. 

Tahl runs the entire way back to Micah’s quarters with Yoda on her back.  The jumps and drops are difficult to manage with a passenger, but she would have to wait too long for the lifts, and they go the wrong way, anyway.

They get back before Qui-Gon has finished showering.  Yoda climbs up onto the couch to sit next to Micah, exchanging a few quiet words, while Tahl leans against the wall and pants like a draft animal until the black spots go away.  It’s been two years since she declared her intention to be Knighted as a Consular, and she’s in miserable shape if she can’t run back and forth across the Temple without wanting to pass out.

Yoda catches her attention and smiles at her.  “Proud of you, I am,” he says, and Tahl stares at him in confusion, because she’s not sure what he’s praising her for.

Qui-Gon exits the ’fresher in clean clothes, but still has that distant, untethered look on his face.  “Master?” he asks, when he sees Yoda sitting next to Micah.

“Visit together, we will,” Yoda says, getting down from the couch.  “Come with me, hmm?”

Qui-Gon frowns but obeys, following Yoda into Micah’s small bedroom.  “Go,” Micah says to Tahl, jerking his head in that direction.

Tahl bends down to kiss Micah’s cheek, and then goes to join the old Master and her friend.  Yoda has managed to get Qui-Gon into Micah’s bed, and is sitting so that Qui-Gon’s head is in the ancient Master’s lap.

Tahl quails at the sight, but goes to sit next to Qui-Gon, taking one of his hands and biting back fresh tears.  Yoda soothes him with the Force, whispering bits of the code in Old Aurebesh while Qui-Gon trembles under their hands.

Yoda doesn’t speak until Qui-Gon lapses into fitful slumber.  “Saw much suffering, he did.”

Tahl jerks a nod.  “Yes, Master,” she says, running her fingers over the back of her friend’s hand.  He’s still shaking, though not as badly.  Qui-Gon’s unique connection to the Living Force has always meant that he feels the pain of those nearby.  He is not an empath; an empath must be trained to understand what they sense.  Qui-Gon has never needed any sort of training to be submersed in the intensity of the lives around him.

“Dooku shouldn’t have sent him back alone,” Tahl says, and is unable to mask the bitterness she feels.

Yoda sighs.  “No.  Failed them both, I have.”

Tahl looks up at him in surprise.  “Master?”

Yoda’s large, expressive eyes are filled with regret.  “Hoped, I did, that they would balance each other.  Controlled and emotionless, Dooku can be.  Emotional and rebellious, Qui-Gon can be.  Wrong, I was.  Bend, Dooku will not.

“Dooku, a difficult student was he.  After his Knighting, declared, I did, that no more Padawans I would take.”  Yoda hums and strokes Qui-Gon’s hair, which is soft and wavy, not bristly at all despite the short Padawan cut.  “A successful Knight, Dooku is, but also hard, and unforgiving.  Thought, I did, that the failure to teach him was mine.”

Tahl sucks in a quiet breath.  “Oh.  You wanted Qui-Gon as your Padawan.”

Yoda nods; Tahl could be Force-blind and still sense the sadness he emanates.  “Yes.  Feared, I did, that I would fail again.  Old, I am, young Tahl, but not always wise.”

Tahl doesn’t know what to say to that, except, “I’m sorry.”  _For both of you,_ she thinks. 

She goes back out to the living room and sits down on the couch next to Micah.  He takes her hand, twining their fingers together.  “Is he okay?”

She nods.  “He will be.”

“Dooku is a fucker,” Micah says.

Tahl snorts.  “I think I said that a couple of years ago.  Granted, I was on some great drugs, so it just sort of slipped out.”

Micah shrugs, a stiff, unnatural motion considering his shoulder is still bandaged.  “Drugs tend to make honest Jedi of us.  Doesn’t change the fact that Dooku is a fucker.  How come you haven’t digitally wrecked his life?”

“Because he’s Qui-Gon’s Master,” she says, knowing that Micah will understand.

After a period of long, companionable silence, Micah says, “We should pairbond.”

Tahl couldn’t have been more shocked if he had suddenly declared his intention to wed her.

“All of us, I mean, all three of us,” he clarifies, when he sees the flabbergasted expression on Tahl’s face.  “We’re all senior Padawans, we’ve got the right to pairbond with whoever we want.  If Qui-Gon has bonds with both of us, it’ll help ease some of the shit that Dooku is putting him through.”

Now that she is getting over the initial surprise, Tahl is sort of appalled that she didn’t think of that herself.  “Gods, Micah, that’s a brilliant idea.”

He smiles.  “Really?”

She grips his hand and smiles back.  “Absolutely.”

“Awesome,” Micah says, and leans his head back against the couch.  “Now we just have to convince Qui-Gon.”

A short time later, Yoda walks out of the bedroom alone, and accepts his gimer stick back from Micah.  “Rest for some time, he will.”

“I am _not_ sleeping in your Master’s bed,” Tahl says, when Micah opens his mouth to offer just that now that her temporary bed is occupied.  “I’ll sleep on the floor, thanks.”

“Plans, you have?” Yoda asks.

Micah and Tahl glance at each other.  “Looks that way.”

The old Master smiles at them.  “A larger role in my grand-Padawan’s life, I have decided to take.”

Micah grins; Tahl raises an eyebrow.  It’s the Yoda equivalent of declaring war.  “Dooku will not approve.”

Yoda’s smile grows wider.  “No.  He will not.”

It’s easier to convince Qui-Gon to pairbond than either of them expects.  “Okay,” he says.

Micah is already sounding out his argument, and in the middle of, “—and we know pairbonds are supposed to be working bonds, but—wait, what’d you say?”

Qui-Gon smiles.  “I said okay.  You don’t have to argue with me.”

“Well, _shit,_ ” Micah exclaims.  “Do you have any idea how much work I put into making sure you’d say yes?”

“Be proud,” Tahl says with a conspiratoral grin.  “He came up with the idea all by himself.”

“You’re both bad friends, and I’m not bonding with you anymore,” Micah says, and manages to turn himself partway around on the couch to face away from them.  “Hurry up and apologize, it’s killing my leg to sit like this.”

“Turn around, favored idiot,” Tahl says.  “We love you.”  It’s the first time she’s ever said that, and despite their long friendship, she can’t help feeling a bit nervous.

“Oh, thank the gods,” Micah says, turning back around and propping his leg back up on the table.  “Okay, all better.”

She’s not disappointed by his lack of response.  She’s _not._

Qui-Gon is giving them both a strange look that makes Tahl want to blush like she’s been caught at something.  “I just want to know why you want to do this.”

“Because your Master is an asshole,” Micah says bluntly.

“Because we know you love your Master, but it’s not enough.  Let us fill in the rough spots,” Tahl explains.

Micah’s expression becomes serious.  “I can’t think of anyone else I would rather be bonded with than my two best friends.”

“Neither can I,” Qui-Gon says in a quiet voice, and Tahl knows it’s decided.

“Awesome.  Now someone tell me how we actually do this, because I have no idea,” Micah says.

Qui-Gon looks surprised.  “How can you not know how to establish a bond with someone?”

“I don’t know how, either,” Tahl admits.  Her bond with Master Tyvokka is considered very basic, because it’s not one of his strengths.  Mindspeech does not come easy to her Master, and he has to be intensely focused to make himself heard.  “We got as far as what kinds of bonds there are, and what they do, but that’s about it.”

Qui-Gon sighs at them, his expression fond.  “I’ve known how to create _every_ kind of bond since I was thirteen.  Your Masters’ standards are sorely lacking.”

 _Well, at least Dooku is teaching you_ something, Tahl thinks, but that’s not fair at all.  If Dooku had taught him nothing, her friend would probably be dead by now.

It’s a lot easier to create the bonds than she expects.  Qui-Gon leads them through a joint meditation, in which the three of them re-familiarize themselves with the others’ thoughts and Force-presence.  Then he shows them how to weave the threads that make up a pairbond, and just like that, Tahl has two extra presences inside her head aside from her Master.

“Neat,” says Micah, and then he says, _Whatcha think, T?_

Tahl has to resist the urge to scratch at her head.  Mindspeech tickles.

 _You get used to it,_ Qui-Gon tells her.

Tahl blinks a few times as she discerns who has just spoken.  “You sound the same.”

“There is a period of adjustment, as the brain learns to translate different voices,” Qui-Gon says.  “Give it a few weeks, and our voices will sound more like us.”

“Neat,” Tahl echoes Micah’s opinion.  “You’re a good teacher.”

Qui-Gon’s eyes light up.  “You think so?”

“Well, I would have been clueless without your guidance, so I’d say you are,” Micah says in agreement.

Master Orna is released from the Healers two days later, and Micah can walk without assistance, so Tahl reluctantly bids them well, and makes her way back to her own quarters.  Qui-Gon elects to accompany her.  Her Master will be glad to see her, and there are most certainly reports to write…

“You love him,” Qui-Gon says, and Tahl whirls on him, startled.

“Tell me you didn’t get that from the pairbonds,” she says, because she worked hard to box up that particular feeling.  Unless he turns to her one day, and _sees_ her, all on his own, Tahl doesn’t want Micah to know.  She doesn’t want her other best friend to feel guilt over not being able to return her feelings.

“No, I figured it out before that,” Qui-Gon says, and wraps an arm around her shoulders and pulls her close.  Tahl relaxes against him, accepting the comfort she can feel on two fronts, now.

“If it makes you feel any better, he’s a blind idiot,” Qui-Gon says, and Tahl can’t help but smile.

 

*          *          *          *

 

She’s nineteen before she manages to find someone she’s willing to have sex with.  She is, apparently, extremely picky, but Qui-Gon seems to feel the same way, so that makes Tahl feel a bit less like a hidebound stodge.

His name is Kye Taj Asleem.  He is a research assistant three years her senior, on loan from the local university.  He gets special permission to peruse the Temple library for a week, and Tahl is assigned to be his guide for the duration.

They spend the entire week immersed in each other’s company.  Asleem is intelligent, though soft-spoken, and Tahl quickly gets used to the sound of their murmured words intertwining as they roam the stacks.  She recognizes that he is interested in her, but she is hesitant to respond, at first.  Brilliant or not, the man is way too timid; Jocasta nearly makes mincemeat of him the first time they interact.

Still, he has a very nice body, and vibrant green eyes, and smells like warm spice.  As long as he isn’t looking for anything long term, perhaps…

He waits until the last day, which is all Tahl needs to figure out he isn’t relationship-hunting.  When Asleem hesitantly asks her to come back to his guest quarters for caff, or tea, she says yes.

Hesitant in public?  Yes.  Hesitant in the bedroom?  Gods, _no._

Asleem has her naked and shivering in the warm air in no time, and Tahl is working on stripping him free of the layers of garments he wears.  If there is going to be nudity, she will not be doing it alone. 

Asleem pulls her close, resting one hand on the nape of her neck, the other gripping her rear, and he teases her skin with restless fingers.  Maybe it is on her face, or maybe she isn’t quite relaxed enough of body.  Asleem pauses and asks, “I am your first?”

Tahl nods.  “Yes.  Is that a problem?”

His eyes widen.  “Problem?  No, my lady.  It is a great honor.”

She blushes, feeling the heat of it in her face, the tips of her ears, even her breasts.  “I’m not used to such compliments.”

Asleem smiles.  “Then you shall have many.” 

He guides her into his bedroom without releasing his hold on her body, pressing her up against the mattress until her knees bend.  Tahl sits; he puts gentle pressure on her shoulders to encourage her to lie back. 

“I am so fortunate,” he whispers, and runs his hands over her breasts.  His touch is feathery light, then firm, then light again.  “How could you not yet have taken a lover to your bed?  Or scores of lovers?”

Tahl sighs into his caresses.  “Well, too many men see the size of my cleavage, and make nasty assumptions about my profession, or assume they can touch me as they please.  I almost started a war when I was twelve because an ambassador couldn’t keep his hand off my ass.”

Asleem snorts in amusement.  “Men are swine.”

“You’re a man,” she decides to point out.

“I am a _respectful_ swine,” he insists, and brushes her nipples with the rough edges of his thumbs.  Tahl gasps and arches up into the touch.

“So beautiful,” Asleem whispers, and lowers his head between her legs, nuzzling the inside of her thigh.  He touches the rounded swell of her pubis with reverent fingertips, playing with the hair that Tahl keeps buzzed short. 

She laughs and squirms.  “That tickles, Kye!”

“This will not,” he promises, and proceeds to use his tongue to greatest effect, lapping her clit, circling her vagina, exploring every single crevice he can without actually penetrating her.  Her blood rushes through her skin, and when he uses one hand to grasp her breast and gently squeeze, she has a brilliant, shuddering orgasm.

“Oh, wow,” Tahl whispers, wiping sweat from her brow.  “Kye.”

He smiles at her—smirks at her—and then drops his head and attaches his lips to her clit, sucking hard. 

“Ohmygodsyou—” she gasps at the surprise of it, and a moment of feeling too sensitive, and then has to bite her lip against the shock of a finger entering her.  It’s different, but it doesn’t hurt, not like she’s always been warned it could.

“Breathe through it,” he murmurs against Tahl’s skin, and the sounds reverberating against her make her want to lift off of the damn bed.  Asleem wriggles that lone finger, which makes her toes curl, and as he bathes her with his tongue, soothing and exhilarating and sparking, he gently places a second finger inside of her body.

“Yes?” he asks, waiting as Tahl pants for breath.

“Yes!” she says, and that is all the encouragement that he needs.  He sucks her clit hard and fingerfucks her until she is keening out a second orgasm. 

“Okay,” Tahl says, feeling wrung out and sated.  “Now I get why the crude terms survive so well.”

Asleem grins.  “Because they are so accurate?”

“Uh huh.”  Tahl moves her head in a faint nod.  “I suppose I expected things to be different.”

He shrugs, twisting his fingers a bit where they still reside inside of her.  His other hand is also in motion, tracing over the curves and planes of her body that he can reach.  “Sex between men and women—or anyone else—should not only be about penetration.  Sensuality is the key.  Enjoyment.  Trust.  If I thrust myself into you and did nothing to ensure your own pleasure, I would be an unworthy partner.”

Tahl lifts her head.  “You _are_ going to be doing that last bit, right?”

Asleem smiles at her, looking predatory, and it sends a delighted thrill down her spine.  “Eventually.”

She can’t quite walk right the next day.

Micah notices immediately, of course.  He discovered a love of bed partners three years ago, and doesn’t look to be slowing down any time soon.  “Hey, looks like someone got laid!”

“Someone did, yes,” Tahl retorts, refusing to feel embarrassed.

He gives her a quick, searching look.  “Was he good to you?”

That makes her smile.  “He was very good to me, yes.”

“Excellent,” Micah says.  “I’d hate to have to track him down and kill him.  I don’t actually know of any prime body-hiding spots around here.  So!”  He leans back in his chair with a grin.  “Can we gossip about it?”

 _No,_ Tahl starts to say, and then changes her mind.  She holds up both hands, all her fingers spread wide.  She closes one fist, and then opens it again.

“What?” Micah asks, and then does a double-take.  “He made you… _fifteen times_?!”

She grins at the look of disbelief on his face.  “I may have lost count.”

“How are you still alive?” he exclaims.  “How does anyone do that? Where is this man?  I have to learn at his feet, become his disciple!”

Qui-Gon joins them, his skin still flushed from a recent shower.  His hair has already been tied back.  He started growing it out last year, a purposeful bit of rebellion against his Master’s traditionalist ways.  The short tail makes Dooku seethe, even though Qui-Gon still wears his Padawan braid in its proper place.

“Disciple of what?” Qui-Gon asks.

“Orgasms!” Micah shouts.

Tahl shushes him.  They are usually left alone in this particular lounge, but Micah could wake the dead with his blither.

“Ah,” Qui-Gon says.  He glances at her with a smile.  “Was he good to you?”

Tahl smiles back.  She has the greatest friends.  “A perfect gentleman.”

“A perfect gentleman with the power to give women fifteen orgasms in one night!”  Micah still looks amazed.

Qui-Gon raises an eyebrow.  “I think I’d be dead if I tried that.”

“There are distinct benefits to being female, and not just because you get your own personal breasts,” Tahl says, just to make Micah sputter some more.

“No, no, no,” Micah says, holding up his hand.  “You guys don’t get it.  This means my technique is _awful_.  You have to educate me, Tahl!  Tell me what he did.”

Tahl blanches.  There is no way in all of the seven hells that she is going to ever—

“Not right now, Mic,” Qui-Gon interrupts, and Tahl could kiss him.  “It’s my turn to gossip.”

“Gossip?  What do you have that could possibly top _fifteen orgasms_?” Micah asks.

“A boyfriend,” Qui-Gon says, and gains Tahl and Micah’s undivided attention.

The club that Qui-Gon takes them to that evening is called _Beautiful Sky_.  The exterior of the building is patterned black and gray duracrete, which glitters in the reflection of the city lights. 

“Nice name,” Tahl says.  It’s a far cry from _Risque_ or _Nude Twi’leks R Us_ or _Pet Me._   (The last one had been an accidental early education on fetish clubs.)

“Look at that crowd,” Micah says, nodding his head at the line of people stretching down the length of the building and around the corner.  “This could take a while.”

“No, it won’t,” Qui-Gon says, and leads them directly to the bouncer guarding the door.  If he’s human, he’s a blend—the man on duty is almost as wide as he is tall, and looks like he could wrestle a starship into submission.

To Tahl’s surprise, the bouncer only waves them through.  “Hey, Jinn,” he says in greeting.  He has a wide smile, and very large teeth.

“’lo, Grue,” Qui-Gon replies, and escorts Tahl and Micah into the building.

“Disreputable friends,” Tahl mutters.  Qui-Gon pretends innocence.

There is a lounge before the club proper, and it’s quiet compared to the district racket outside.  Granted, Tahl can also hear the repetitive thud of bass-heavy music coming through the wall, so this will be like the calm before a storm. 

“You’re okay with this?” she asks Qui-Gon.  Micah dragged them into their first club some months ago, saying they needed to get out more.  She’d enjoyed the dancing, but Qui-Gon’s senses had been so overwhelmed that her friend had been manic and hyper for almost two days afterward. 

Dooku had _not_ been pleased.  Yoda thought it was hilarious.

“It’s all about finding the right method to use up that energy,” Qui-Gon says, still with that too-innocent look on his face. 

Tahl grins and hopes that the mysterious boyfriend survives the night.

The inside of the club is not what she expects.  For starters, even though the music is absolutely blaring, her ears don’t feel like they’re under assault.  When Micah says, “Wow,” in a normal voice, she can hear him easily.

“It’s Skae’s design,” Qui-Gon says in explanation, leading them through a maze of tables and abandoned chairs.  The dance floor is _packed_.  “He figured out how to align a combination of acoustic dampeners to keep the noise levels up without deafening his guests.”

“It’s brilliant,” Tahl says.  She turns around to comment to Micah and discovers that he’s already gone, distracted by a bone-white Twi’lek in a skin-tight, glimmering red sheath dress.  _Oh, good gods, you are_ awful! Tahl sends.

 _But she’s pretty!_ Micah replies.  _There’s plenty of time to meet the boyfriend later._

Qui-Gon takes her hand, shaking his head.  “It’s fine.  It’s not like this is a diplomatic setting.”

“It’s still rude,” Tahl replies, annoyed.

Qui-Gon just shrugs.  Micah’s behavior has never bothered him.  “This way.”

He leads her to the rear of the building, where a small section of the club has been roped off.  A second bouncer, a tall Gand with a steely-eyed gaze, waves them through without saying a word.  “Does everyone here know who you are?” Tahl asks.

“Mostly,” Qui-Gon says, and then smiles.  “Skae!”

He’s gorgeous; Tahl has to give him that.  Skae Antivar has thick brown hair liberally streaked with vibrant red, pale brown eyes, high cheekbones, and the long, lean build of a professional dancer.  He’s not much older than Tahl and Qui-Gon, which makes her wonder how Antivar can afford to not only own the building, but to have designed the interior so well.  Coruscant real estate is not cheap.

Antivar looks delighted to see Qui-Gon, and she can sense their ease and familiarity with each other.  Their physical interaction, though, is almost professional—no more than clasped arms.

 _Discreet_ , Tahl comments silently.

Qui-Gon’s eyes flicker in her direction.  _I’m not fond of making a public spectacle of myself.  Neither is Skae, honestly._

 _In that outfit?_ Tahl asks, as Antivar turns to her and takes her hand.  The man is wearing leather pants that look to have been painted on.

 _He fits in nicely, doesn’t he?_ is Qui-Gon’s only comment.

“Qui-Gon, you would have gorgeous friends,” Antivar says, and drops a perfunctory kiss on Tahl’s knuckles.  “It’s nice to meet you at last.”

“At last?” Tahl raises an eyebrow.  “How long have you two been acquainted?”

“Oh, several years now,” Antivar says, to her surprise.  “We met when he saved my young and foolish hide.  However, it was only recently when I realized that my friend was…very much worth pursuing.”

“You’re lucky I thought the same way,” Qui-Gon says lightly, and Antivar grins. 

“D’jo!” he calls, and gains the attention of a skinny Rodian girl seated nearby.  “Night-time!”

“Awesome,” D’jo says, and slides open a control panel built into the table, activating three switches.

There is an immediate roar of approval from the dance floor, though Tahl can’t see what’s changed.  Then Qui-Gon says, “Look up,” and she does so.

“Wow,” Tahl breathes.  The entire ceiling has become a projected night sky, glorious and pristine, thick with stars and hints of distant galaxies.  Nothing like it is visible on Coruscant; it takes a visit to a wild or largely uninhabited planet to see such a clear sky.  “Now the name makes sense.”

Antivar smiles.  “I could think of nothing more fitting than the truth.”

The rest of the night goes well, better than she’d dared to hope.  Tahl still isn’t sure where Antivar gained his fortune, but whether it was illicit or not, she finds she doesn’t mind.  Antivar is a bit rough around the edges, but he has a good heart, and it’s obvious that he’s completely smitten with her best friend.

Micah joins them later and is introduced.  They fought earlier over the right to threaten Antivar with horrible consequences if he dared break their friend’s heart.  Micah won, so he issues the appropriate threats with a large smile on his face.

“You have loyal friends, Qui-Gon,” Antivar says, a bit wide-eyed.  “Also, I’m almost certain my testicles just tried to climb up inside my body to hide.”

Tahl decides that she likes him.

Qui-Gon doesn’t hide the fact that he is in an actual relationship, but neither does he advertise it.  He sees Skae when time allows, sometimes with Tahl accompanying him, or Micah, or it’s all three of them going down to _Beautiful Sky._   It’s become Tahl’s favorite place to dance.  When she is able to see that brilliant, sparkling tapestry overhead, it means that the night ends with her head feeling free and clear, her heart at ease, her entire being at peace.

Tahl catches sight of the two of them on the dance floor one night, on an evening when the crowds thinned early.  Qui-Gon has his arms wrapped around Skae, who is snuggled in as close as he can get without stripping them both naked.  Skae’s eyes are closed, but he’s talking, and whatever he hears makes Qui-Gon smile, slow and lazy.

“He’s happy,” Micah says.

“Yes,” Tahl agrees.  She can’t really remember ever seeing him so…content.

“Come on, dance with me,” Micah says, jerking his head in invitation.  “I don’t think Qui-Gon’s going home with us tonight, anyway.”

The next song is a fast one.  Thank goodness.

Someone blabs about it, eventually; Tahl never finds out who it was, though she suspects Qui-Gon knows.  He is called before the Council to discuss the nature of the infraction.  Tahl and Micah are to join him as witnesses, though witnesses for or against, Tahl has no idea.

“You’re not worried?” Micah asks, before they are brought inside the Chamber.

Qui-Gon smiles.  “I have nothing to be worried about,” he says, and then it’s time.

It’s not the full Council, which eases the tension in Tahl’s shoulders.  Dooku is there, his usual stern mask in place.  Yoda is present, but his eyes are closed in apparent disregard of the session.  Seated in front of them are Masters Rancisis, Poof, and Bittram, with Master Su Cham leading the inquiry.

“Padawan Jinn,” Su Cham says in his gravelly voice.  “It has come to our attention that you are in violation of the Jedi Code, particularly the section devoted to the conduct of Padawans.”

“Am I?” Qui-Gon asks.  His voice is mild, his tone light and unconcerned.  “What conduct of mine is in violation of the Code, Masters?”

Su Cham narrows his eyes.  “The Code is clear, Padawan.  As an apprentice, you are forbidden to form significant attachments with others.”

Qui-Gon affects surprise.  “I wasn’t aware that my pairbonds with Padawan Giett and Padawan Tahl were a problem.”

“Not that,” Su Cham says, and opens his mouth.

Before he can speak again, Qui-Gon says, “My training bonds, then?”

 _Bonds?_ Micah asks.

 _Yoda,_ Tahl says.

_Ah._

Su Cham looks like he wants to gnash his teeth.  “No, Padawan Jinn.  We are here to discuss your inappropriate attachment to Coruscant citizen Skae Antivar!”

“I do not share any sort of bond with Skae Antivar,” Qui-Gon says.

Tahl knows that’s true.  Qui-Gon might technically be flouting the Code, having such a public courtship—especially with a non-Jedi—but he would never formalize that relationship before his Knighting.  Skae still isn’t even certain he understands what a bond is, even after their multiple attempts at explaining it.  He’s not a null, but he’s not very sensitive, either.

“Do you deny before this Council that you have been involved in a secret relationship with Skae Antivar?” Su Cham demands to know, looking incensed.

“Of course I deny it,” Qui-Gon replies calmly.  “It’s not a secret that we’re dating.”

 _Hah! Score three for our side,_ Micah says.

Su Cham takes a visible breath.  “It is a secret if you do not inform—”

“Nowhere in the Code does it say that I am required to inform the Council each time I intend to have a sexual liaison with someone,” Qui-Gon counters.  “Unless that has recently changed?”

One of the Councilors snickers, though Tahl doesn’t see who.  “No, it hasn’t recently changed,” Su Cham grates out, “but still, the Code is clear, Padawan Jinn.”

“Ah,” Qui-Gon says, and Tahl can feel that he’s gearing up.  “Well then, Master, I must ask:  Has my academic work suffered in any way in the past six months?”

“No,” says Master Rancisis.  “If anything, your marks continue to improve, Padawan Jinn.”

Su Cham glares at Master Rancisis.  “The Code—”

“Has my physical training been affected?” Qui-Gon asks.

“Not at all,” Master Rancisis answers, looking serene when Su Cham’s glower intensifies.

Qui-Gon nods.  “Have I failed to perform adequately while on assignment?”

“No,” Master Rancisis says, seemingly oblivious to his fellow Council member’s ire.  “Your missions with Master Dooku are exemplary, and your own recent solo assignments have been completed with a meticulous attention to detail that myself and Master Yoda were just praising only the previous day.”

“Well,” Qui-Gon says, affecting a slightly puzzled air.  It’s enough to make Tahl bite her tongue to keep the smile from her face.  “I’m afraid I don’t understand the nature of the complaint, then, Masters.”

Su Cham looks as if he wants to pull out what’s left of his hair.  Micah makes a strangled sound, trying hard not to choke on his own laughter.

“The _complaint_ —” Su Cham tries again, only to be interrupted, as help arrives from an unexpected source.  Dooku steps forward, his irritation plain.

“This is ridiculous!” Dooku snaps.  “Su Cham, if I believed that my Padawan’s sex life had any sort of negative impact on his training, I would have been the _first_ to report his behavior to the Council.  Can we end this farce, now, please?”

Su Cham actually growls in frustration.  “Dooku, there is procedure to be followed!”

“Yes, and my Padawan is running rings around your precious procedure,” Dooku counters, annoyed.  “I do believe he is admirably demonstrating that his dedication to the Order has not been swayed in the least.”

Yoda opens his eyes.  “Further reason for complaint, is there?” he asks the other Councilors.

They each shake their heads, looking just as amused as Tahl feels.  “Then closed, this matter is,” Yoda says, and gives Su Cham a very stern glare when the other Master looks as if he wants to protest.

Su Cham deflates.  “Dismissed, then.  May the Force be with you.”

“And with you,” Qui-Gon replies, unperturbed.  He leads Tahl and Micah in bowing their respect to the Council.

The moment the doors close behind them, Micah bursts out laughing.  “Oh, shit, guys, I thought I was going to explode in there!”

“That was fantastic,” Tahl says, hard-pressed not to join Micah in a fit of giggles.  “Oh, Force, Qui-Gon, you really did talk rings around him!”

Qui-Gon smiles at the compliment.  “That was easy, compared to some of the treaties Dooku and I have had to untangle.”

Micah manages to get himself back under control.  “I can’t believe Dooku sided with you, though!”

“Dooku has little patience for things he considers a waste of time,” Qui-Gon says.  “He already knew about Skae, anyway.  Said as long as I continued to comport myself in the way that he expected, he didn’t care a whit who I saw on my own time.”

“So he really isn’t a complete ass, then,” Micah says, surprised.

“He never was,” Qui-Gon says with a faint smile.  “We just didn’t understand each other.”

“And now you do?” Tahl asks, curious.

Qui-Gon tilts his head, considering.  “A little.  We just expect very different things from life, and those ideals are never going to be compatible.”

“Why the hell haven’t you faced your Trials yet?” Micah asks, looking a bit bewildered.  “I know I’m not ready, but Qui-Gon, you sure as hell sound like you are.”

Qui-Gon shrugs.  “I haven’t asked, and neither has Dooku.  I’m sure it’ll happen at the right time.”

 

*          *          *          *

 

When it does goes bad, it’s not for any reason Tahl would ever have guessed.

She successfully completes her Trials at age twenty-four.  When they are over, and she is kneeling on the cold stone floor outside the Chamber of Trial, she can’t decide if she is elated or terrified.

The moment Tahl is Knighted and her braid cut, Master Tyvokka is granted a seat on the Council. 

[They wanted me to join eight years ago,] Tyvokka admits when she asks.  [But I was dedicated to you, and your training.  If they were serious, they were to ask me again when I submitted your petition to take the Trials.]

“Looks like they were serious,” Tahl says, smiling.  She is honored that he was willing to put off such a prestigious assignment, just to take care of her.

Skae Antivar never doubted that she would become a Knight, and he insists that they celebrate Tahl’s accomplishment at _Beautiful Sky_.  Tahl accepts the invitation, ready to be outside Temple walls for an evening. 

Tahl is, at last, a Jedi Knight, and she doesn’t know what tomorrow will bring.  She doesn’t even know what to _do_ with herself!

She confesses this frustration to Skae, who laughs.  “My forefathers always suggested that it is wisest to live in the moment,” he says.  “What do you wish to do right now?”

Tahl smiles.  She’d been wondering where Qui-Gon picked up that bit of dubious wisdom.  “Dance until it physically hurts,” she says.  It’s a nice idea.  She thinks further on the notion of writhing bodies.  “Maybe sex.”

Skae holds up his hands.  “Alas, I am not available,” he says with a grin.  “Perhaps our other friend?”

Tahl resists the urge to sigh.  “Skae, I could probably strip naked and sit on Micah’s face, and he would just think I wanted to try wrestling in the manner of the Shin’Tao.”

“Oh!” Skae says in startled realization.  “My sympathies, Tahl.  I would not have thought that one so fond of female cleavage as Padawan Giett would be so…so…”

“Oblivious,” Tahl says bluntly.

Skae nods and gets her a drink.  Tahl stares at the golden liquid in awe; it’s probably the most expensive thing in the bar.  “For a good friend, and a new Knight.  May your life be long, and your legend great,” Skae says, raising his glass in a toast.

She taps their glasses together, and then says, “I’m pretty sure you just cursed me.  The version I know is, “May you live in interesting times.’”

He is unrepentant.  “I refuse to wish anyone a boring, drab existence.”

“What’s boring?” Qui-Gon asks, joining them.  His hair is hanging in damp strands down to his shoulders, which means he and Micah were showing off on the dance floor again. 

Sure enough, when Micah stops by a moment later, he has a bottle of ale and is practically dripping sweat.  “Did I miss the Knighthood toasting?”

Skae grins.  “I wished her an interesting life.”

“You’re an evil fucker,” Micah says.  “What do I say to counter that, T?”

“I could use a more active sex life,” Tahl says in a dry voice.

Micah takes up the challenge.  “May you never be bored in the bedroom.”

Tahl makes a face.  “Great.  Now I have to buy a vibrator,” she says, and Qui-Gon laughs, chokes, and almost spews carbonated ale from his nose. 

“Are you staying over tonight, babe?” Skae asks Qui-Gon with a hopeful smile, after the obligatory clean-up and a few half-hearted threats.

He shakes his head.  “No, unfortunately not.  We’re supposed to ship out in the morning.  Hell, Micah and I are lucky we managed to be here for Tahl’s Knighting at all.”

“Minor scheduling miracle,” Micah says.  “I think the miracle is named Yoda.”

“There do seem to be benefits to being adopted by a troll,” Skae says, and they all three turn to stare at him.

“Skae!” Qui-Gon hisses, aghast.

Micah is outraged.  “You did not just call Master Yoda—”

“—a troll?!” Tahl repeats in disbelief, trying hard not to laugh.

“I call it like I see it,” Skae responds in an amused tone.  “And I did see it.  Him, I mean.  Master Yoda came to see me.”

“Really?” Qui-Gon asks in surprise.  “When?”

“Oh, a few days ago,” Skae says, sipping his drink.  “Given that we’ve been dating for a number of years now, I think the tiny Jedi wanted to make sure I was worthy of your continued attentions.”

Micah raises an eyebrow.  “How did _that_ go?”

“I fed him one of the sweet ales and showed him my sky,” Skae replies.  “Then we talked about good beer for an hour and a half.”

“You talked with Master Yoda.  About _beer_ ,” Tahl says.  She knows she must look to be in complete disbelief.  It’s an expression mirrored on Micah and Qui-Gon’s faces.

Skae regards them all with a fond smile.  “I think you are too used to viewing your Master as a mystical, awe-inspiring Jedi, and not as the physical being he is.  Besides,” he continues with a shrug.  “Everyone likes beer.”

Tahl does as she’s planned, and dances to bone-vibrating songs, swaying in place among the sea of dancers.  The stress of her Trials begins to fade, allowing Tahl to take joy in the paths she’ll have the chance to walk tomorrow. 

Perhaps that bit of wisdom is not so dubious, after all.

They leave the club at midnight, since at least one of them has a transport to meet in the morning.  Tahl bundles herself back into her robe against the pervading chill of Coruscant’s mild winter, and notices that Qui-Gon is hesitating, half-turned to stare back in the direction of the club.

“Hey, you can go spend the night if you want,” Micah says.  “I can come give you a lift to the hangar so you make it out in time.”

“It’s kind of you to offer, but, no.”  Qui-Gon shakes his head as they climb the stairs to the local landing platform, stepping into the queue for an aircab that will return them to the Temple District.  “Remember: Proper comportment.  We’ve gone this far without me fucking up.  I don’t need to take the chance.”

Tahl looks up at her friend, who really should have been the first of their trio to see the Trials.  (It really irritates her that he wound up being the taller of the two of them.  She’s _Noorian!_ )  “Are you certain that’s all it is?”

Qui-Gon lifts his head, as if scenting the breeze; she can feel his presence in the Force reach outwards, seeking and listening.  “No,” he says, and turns back towards the club.

Tahl and Micah turn to follow.  They make it back down to the street, and then the duracrete beneath their feet shudders.

The next sound Tahl hears is the muted roar of an explosion.  It is followed quickly by shrill, terrified screams.

“Skae,” Qui-Gon whispers.

They run back to the club with Force-enhanced speed, and arrive to find chaos.  Qui-Gon hesitates for just a breath, and then he turns to Tahl.  _Emergency services._

She nods and runs, half-listening through the pair-bonds as Micah and Qui-Gon do a quick recon of the outdoor survivors of the blast.  Micah starts herding them away from the building, which is pouring smoke and listing dangerously to one side.

Tahl finds the initial response crew and pulls out her lightsaber, getting instant recognition.  “Not enough,” she says, glancing at the two Judicial officers and three droid assistants.  “One of the clubs has been bombed, and there are multiple fatalities.  We need fire control, evac, search and rescue teams, and a hell of a lot of medics.”

“Understood,” the senior Judicial officer says, and starts barking orders into his comm.

“Was it _Beautiful Sky_?” the junior officer asks, looking pensive.  At Tahl’s nod, the girl pales.  “My brother is working there tonight,” she says in a whisper.

Tahl puts her hand on the girl’s shoulder.  “We do our jobs.  That’s the best way we can help him.  All right?”

She nods in response.  The senior official shuts off his comm, looking grim.  “We have a fire down in the Industrial Zone.  Backup is coming, but we’re only going to have about half the manpower we need.”

“Then let’s get to work,” Tahl orders, distantly amused to hear so much of her Master’s insistence in her own voice.  She gets the junior officer to partner with the droids on crowd control, keeping her away from the bodies that are starting to be laid out a safe distance from the wreckage.  Tahl sorts through the injured, remembering old missions with Tyvokka as she does so.  It’s been awhile since she was involved in this sort of chaos, but she has forgotten none of it. 

Tahl borrows a green, glowing ink marker from a singed survivor to tag the critically wounded with a large circle on cheeks and hands and torsos, to make sure they get attention from the arriving medics.  She takes a breath at the end of the row of bodies, turns around, and begins marking those already deceased with an X.

Micah finds her at one point and shoves a breather onto her face without so much as a by-your-leave.  “Toxic fumes,” he says.  He’s covered in dust and three different colors of blood.

Tahl nods and returns to helping the medics load survivors.  There are three victims that can’t be moved without stasis units, and there aren’t any to be had.  In frustration, she hunts down the first senior Judicial officer she met to order him to request Temple assistance.

“This is not the Temple District,” he says, angry.  “That makes it a Judicial matter.  I could lose my job, Knight!”

“I’ll speak for you,” Tahl says, trying not to shake the fool until his teeth rattle.  “But we need help, we need those stasis units, or more people are going to die!”

He grits his teeth and then nods.  “Okay.  My name’s Tellac, by the way.”

“Tahl,” she says, and goes back to find more bodies have arrived, borne out of the club by Micah and Qui-Gon and the rescue teams.  She doesn’t bother with the marker. None of them survived.

Jedi Healers arrive with Padawans and young Knights, and the medical teams breathe quiet sighs of relief.  Tahl walks until she is just beyond the range of dust and fumes, strips off her breather, and sits down on the sidewalk.  About twenty meters away, the area has been cordoned off, with security droids manning the perimeter.

She pulls out her comm and inputs her Master’s code.  [Are you all right, cub?] Tyvokka asks, howling his concern.

“I’m all right, Master,” Tahl says, and coughs when her breath catches in her throat.  “I just…”  She swallows and uses a clean spot on her tunic sleeve to wipe her eyes.  “Please inform Master Yoda that Skae Antivar is dead.”

[Oh, no,] Tyvokka moans.  [Your nestmate, is he…?]

“He’s doing his job, Master,” Tahl says, feeling cracked and brittle, and knows that it’s not just her own emotions that she’s sensing.  “Just like we are.”

She walks back to the club and busies herself with the continuing rescue efforts.  It’s easier not to think that way.

 

*          *          *          *

 

The Club District bombing is the news of the day for Coruscant, shadowing even the fire in the Industrial Zone that damaged a wide, deep swath of property, turning it into so much worthless char.  The damaged area in the Zone is purchased a few days later for less than a quarter of its original value, which leads to suspicions of arson, but that is the last Tahl ever hears about it.  She has other things on her mind.

Dooku, in a rare show of compassion, orders Qui-Gon to remain behind, and takes on their assigned mission by himself.  He says that the Padawans will need to remain on Coruscant for the investigation into the club’s destruction, but she sees the flash of gratitude in Qui-Gon’s eyes and knows the gesture for what it really is. 

There is no funeral for Skae Antivar.  Even if Skae had been fond of the idea, there is no body to burn or bury.  He and most of his crew were closest to the blast, and were incinerated.

Tahl’s grief for Skae is deeper than she ever realized it would be.  They accepted him at first for Qui-Gon’s sake, but in the years since that time, Skae had become a close friend, turning their original trinity into a stable quartet.

The investigation reveals that a bomb was walked into the club, perhaps minutes after Tahl, Micah, and Qui-Gon departed.  It was placed in Skae’s private seating area, and detonated shortly thereafter. 

No motive can be determined; Skae had no real debts, had forged no rivalries among the sometimes ruthless mid-level businesses, and no troubles had followed him from his homeworld.  It’s only when a digital note turns up that Judicial can inform the Temple as to the motive for _Beautiful Sky’s_ fate.

“Someone just…” Micah looks horrified.  “It was just a suicide?”

Qui-Gon nods.  He looked tired, and his eyes are filled with such grief that Tahl just wants to hold him.  He won’t allow it.  “Just a suicide.  That’s all.”

The suicide was a thirty-year-old security consultant who had recently lost his job.  Slew of gambling debts.  Loss of income.  Possible untreated mental health issues, but that could not be confirmed.  A stupid, petty decision to make his life memorable, one last time.

Tahl hates it.  She and Micah feel utterly useless.  There is no problem that can be fixed, no facts that can be researched, no enemy to seek.  _Beautiful Sky’s_ tale is concluded, with forty-eight people dead, and there is nothing more that can be done.

Qui-Gon knocks on her door three days after the bombing.  She invites him into her new quarters, which are still too bare and echoing.  She hasn’t even unpacked her meager belongings.

He hasn’t bothered with tying up his hair, so Tahl gets a brush and does it for him, running her fingers through the long strands until he sighs.  When she looks at his face, she is not surprised to see that he is crying.  “It wasn’t your fault, dearheart.”

“I know,” he whispers, and Tahl can sense that he believes that.  “I just wonder…if I had stayed, would it be different?”

“Of course it would be different,” Tahl says, because she has thought about it often since they stumbled back to the Temple that morning, dirty, exhausted, and heartsick.  “You’d be dead, too.”

Qui-Gon utters a bitter laugh.  “So you’re saying my sense of responsibility saved my life.”

“Maybe our lives, too,” she says in a soft voice.  “Micah and I could have stayed longer that evening, you know.  But we had decided to go home with you, because it seemed like the right thing to do.”

He finally allows Tahl to hold him, as she has wanted to do from the first, and they weep in silence together.

A week later, Micah has invaded her quarters and is forcing her to unpack.  Tahl had admittedly not meant to let it get that far, but then Master Sabree puts a crumbling bit of parchment in her hands, and she forgets.  The parchment is a great distraction from grief and lungs that still want to cramp from everything she inhaled that night.

Qui-Gon turns up after they’re half-done, holding a datapad and looking frazzled.  “What’s up?” Micah asks, after steering their friend to Tahl’s new couch and forcing him to sit.

In answer, Qui-Gon hands him the datapad, and then buries his face in his hands.  Micah reads in a fast scroll and then pales.  “Holy… _balls._   Everything?”

“Everything,” Qui-Gon confirms.  Tahl gives Micah a questioning look; Micah hands her the datapad so that she can read for herself.

Skae Antivar had a will, and named Qui-Gon Jinn as his sole beneficiary.  Even with _Beautiful Sky’s_ loss, the lump sum is ludicrously substantial.  “Gods, Qui-Gon,” she gasps.  “Where in the Force did he get all that?”

“His father was Chogreen Mar,” Qui-Gon mumbles through his fingers.

Micah’s eyes widen.  “Oh.  Fuck _me_.”

Tahl sits down next to Qui-Gon on the couch, stunned.  Chogreen Mar had been one of Iridonia’s most prominent leaders until his assassination five years previous.  Dooku and Qui-Gon had been assigned to find his killer, and to protect Chogreen Mar’s three children, heirs to the vast Mar fortune.  “That’s how you met,” Tahl says, feeling fresh tears prick at her eyes.  “That’s when you saved his life.”

“Least Iridonian-looking Zabrak I’ve ever seen,” Micah says with a faint, sad smile.

“His mother was full human, and the genetics wound up dominant.  Skae looked almost exactly like her,” Qui-Gon says.  He lifts his head, breathing out a long sigh.  “After his father’s murder, Skae took his mother’s name.”

“He left you a fucking fortune.”  Micah looks concerned.  “What about his sisters?”

Qui-Gon shrugs.  “I already spoke with them.  They don’t plan to contest the will.  As far as they are concerned, it was Skae’s money to do with as he wished.”

Tahl looks at the numbers again.  As far as Jedi sensibilities go, the amount is astronomical.  Maybe Dooku could look at those numbers and not flinch, but Tahl feels overwhelmed, and it’s not even her money.  “What are you going to do with it?”

“Rebuild the _Sky_ ,” Qui-Gon says, and smiles at her disbelieving look.  “It was his favorite place, Tahl.  I may never want to set foot in it again, but that club is his legacy.”

“Might be awfully difficult to run a club and be a Jedi,” Micah says, but he isn’t protesting.  He seems to like the idea.

“D’jo survived, and is willing to take the job if the club is rebuilt,” Qui-Gon explains.  “Maybe when it’s done, I’ll give it to her.”

Tahl imagines squeaky, hyperactive D’jo receiving such a gift, and can’t help but smile.  “I think that’s a great idea.”

Dooku is gone for two weeks, and in that time the three of them perform a Coruscant miracle to push all of the necessary paperwork through to repair the building.  Permits to clean it up, permits to file Right of Recovery, permits to hire an architect, permits to hire someone with the knowledge to fix the acoustic dampeners…Tahl is grateful to be a Jedi by the end of it, because her job is _easier._

D’jo is left in charge of making sure the work is performed correctly.  She all but salutes Qui-Gon before he leaves for an extended mission, promising to thrash anyone who dares to deviate from the club’s original plans.

He’s gone a lot longer than either Tahl or Micah expects, and isn’t there to see the club is complete.  D’jo invites them down to see it on opening night, the sixth-month anniversary of the bombing.  Tahl looks up at the ceiling and sees that familiar expanse overhead, and thinks that Skae would approve.

She and Micah hold hands, and Tahl commits the details of the starfield to memory.  She has no intention of ever coming back.

 

*          *          *          *

 

Micah takes his Trials the next year, and when Tahl sees his face when it’s over, he looks so much older, and worn, like he has seen things he never imagined.  Then he smiles, his eyes still full of his usual charming warmth, and her heart eases.

Qui-Gon is the only one of their trio that doesn’t see the inside of the Chamber.  The Council Knights him upon return from his and Dooku’s two-year mission, citing that and at least three previous years of missions that highlight his Knight-level competence.

“Took ’em fucking long enough,” Micah says after Qui-Gon’s braid is cut and the official ceremony is concluded.

“Congratulations, Padawan,” Dooku says.  He even seems to be pleased.

“Thank you, Master,” Qui-Gon replies, inclining his head; it’s the perfect, precise amount of respect a Knight must offer to a new Master of the Order.

“I have some final advice for you, if I may,” Dooku says, but doesn’t wait for an acknowledgement.  “Your compassion for others is a great weakness, Padawan.  I fear that it will eventually be your undoing.”

Qui-Gon lifts his head, staring Dooku directly in the eyes.  “I hear your words and will consider them with the respect that they deserve.”

Dooku snorts.  “I believe there are some things that I taught you too well.  I will leave you to the company of your friends,” he says, and departs.

Micah starts to sputter.  “Oh, for fuck’s—does that man have any concept of—”

Qui-Gon shakes his head and grips Micah’s shoulder.  “Micah, it’s over now.  Let it go.”

Their friend sighs, but nods.  “Oh, I will,” Micah agrees.  “But I’m not going to forget.”

Qui-Gon looks in the direction his former Master has gone.  “Nor will I.”

Tahl decides that the atmosphere has turned too dark, and grabs both her friends’ arms to escort them to dinner.  There is food in the commissary, and later, there will be a quiet celebration in her quarters.  None of them can bear the thought of a loud party or boisterous crowds, not after that night at _Beautiful Sky._

 

*          *          *          *

 

She wondered how Tyvokka would adapt to Council ways, at first, but it doesn’t take very long at all to see how well the duty fits him.  Tahl teases him about becoming old; he mock-growls and trounces her during the sparring sessions she can’t quite bring herself to give up.  She lived and trained with her beloved Master for thirteen years, and isn’t ready to lose all the habits of their time together.

After five years of solo work, Qui-Gon is the first of them to take a Padawan, an orphaned Arconan named Kimal Daarc.  His Force-sense is blunted still with the grief of losing his Master, but he is an intelligent boy, with a keen wit and fierce love of the esoteric.  Tahl likes him from the first moment they meet.

Micah is named the Combat Master’s primary assistant, and he takes his first Padawan, a Falleen girl named Brek Fa’an.  She is just as fond of hitting things as Micah, though her fierceness is tempered by a great love of romantic fiction.

Tahl is named a Librarian (not Chief Librarian; that is now Jocasta Nu) and an Archivist, the youngest Knight to accept both titles in at least six hundred years.  She takes no Padawan.  The Council allows her this, at first, but after a time they start to prod her to take on a student of her own, especially once Kimal is Knighted.  She digs in her heels and continues her work, and eventually earns her Mastery due both to her brilliant efforts, and her joint mission with Qui-Gon to Apsilon.

Qui-Gon still prefers Outer Rim missions, but it’s obvious even to Tahl that the Council is grooming him for negotiations among the Inner Rim elite.  He chafes at it, but he’s also _good_ at it, so his protests fall on largely deaf ears.  In defiance of the Council’s plans for his future, Qui-Gon takes another Padawan, the raven-haired boy who had introduced himself to their trio the day of Qui-Gon’s Knighting by impersonating a barnacle.  Xanatos has a charming, winsome smile, and pale blue eyes with an eerie shine to them.  Tahl doesn’t get to see either of them often, but she can sense through her pairbond that Qui-Gon and Xan have developed a very close training bond.  Her best friend is a great teacher; she has no doubt that Xanatos will one day make an excellent Knight.

Micah manages to get Brek Fa’an to Knighthood with both of them largely unscathed.  Brek goes out on permanent assignment and terrifies Judicial, albeit in a Jedi-like manner.

She’s in the Obroa-skai Library when Tyvokka comms her.  [Are you busy, cub?]

Tahl smiles; he has yet to stop calling her that, but she doesn’t mind.  “Just finishing up for the day, Master.”  She doesn’t have a vid connection, so she can’t see his face.  Even with that lack, Tahl knows that the Wookiee is hesitating over some bit of news.  “Is anything the matter?”

[The Council wishes me to become Head of the Order,] Tyvokka rumbles at last.

She can’t help it; she grins wide.  “That’s a problem?”

He huffs at her.  [I am not the most patient of beings, bratling cub.  Do you know how many disagreeable politicians the Head of the Order has to deal with on a daily basis?]

“Master, you’re a _Wookiee_ ,” Tahl says, trying not to laugh.  “I think most of them won’t dare to be so objectionable.  What are you so afraid of?”

[You are just as bad as Plo!] Tyvokka roars back.  [What happened to my agreeable Padawans?]

“You never had any agreeable Padawans,” Tahl reminds him in a dry voice, and continues in Shyriiwook.  _“We are your cubs, Master, not your biological shields.”_

[Horrible,] Tyvokka sighs, but he accepts the Council’s decision.  As Tahl predicted, much of the political grumble is quieted.  No one likes to upset a Wookiee, especially a Wookiee with a lightsaber.

“I told you,” Tahl says the next time she greets him in the Temple.

[Brat,] he rumbles back, and pulls her in for a hug.

Tahl satiates her love of ancient documents with project after project, traveling to distant libraries and museums, and probably breathing in more dust than is necessarily healthy.  Some of the scrolls she works with haven’t been touched in hundreds of years.  She pieces together shattered bits of parchment for preservation, and follows ancient clues to find lost works.  She makes friends with curators, archivists, historians, other librarians, and book sellers.  She restores two languages that were thought to be functionally extinct, and thinks she is on the right track to piece a third back together, as well.

For a long time, that is the sum of their lives.  They eat together and talk and occasionally drink together, at least two of them when it can’t be all three.  Xan joins them often, delighting in their company, and Tahl discovers that there is a sharp sense of humor underneath the boy’s shy exterior.  He sometimes struggles to control his emotions, but her own feelings were all over the map as a teenager, and it gives none of them cause for concern. 

Sometimes the frustration is too much.  In Qui-Gon’s company, Tahl rails about Micah’s complete obliviousness to the fact that she is both single and female, while he dates just about anything with a pair of breasts.  She has not met _anyone_ in all of her travels that makes her feel the way Micah does.  She hasn’t even found a passing spark of interest, something that would mitigate this stupid, impossible desire she has for her other best friend.  Qui-Gon is sympathetic, but won’t volunteer to clunk Micah over the head on her behalf.

Then they are tasked with stopping the civic unrest on Telos.  Thanks to the New Apsilon mission’s success, Tahl is assigned to accompany Qui-Gon and Xanatos.  She has a moment of intense disquiet at that; the young man really doesn’t need to watch his biological father lose his damn mind. 

Micah wants to go with them, but is being corralled by Yoda and Master Rancisis into attending Council meetings over an upcoming trial in the courts—he participated in a Judicial arrest some months previous, and now they need their star Jedi witness.  Instead, they are granted the company of Orykan Tamarik, an orphaned Padawan who has yet to find a new Master.

“I know what you’re up to, and it won’t work,” Tahl tells Yoda before their departure.

Yoda raises his ears and blinks up at her, oozing nonchalance.  “Up to nothing, I am,” he says, which is a blatant lie and they both know it.  “Padawan Tamarik, an asset she will be.  To this mission,” he adds, almost as an afterthought.

“Troll,” she shoots back, and leaves in an amused huff.

Telos is awful, but Xanatos seems to be holding up well.  They fight together during the initial riots in the capital.  Orykan reminds Tahl of herself as a young Padawan, before the surgery that changed her life.  She realizes this and smiles; the troll has won this round, and Tahl knows that she’ll be asking the young Twi’lek to be her Padawan when the mission is over.

The horror of Xanatos’s betrayal changes everything.

If Tahl hadn’t been reassigned—if she hadn’t accepted the reassignment so blithely, even though Telos was still in turmoil—if she and Orykan had only stayed _one day longer,_ Tahl would have been able to stand by her friend’s side on the worst day of his life.

Instead, she is lightyears away, impossibly distant, when she feels a powerful shock reverberate through the pairbond.  Orykan brings her the news that Crion is dead, his corrupt government overthrown.  From Qui-Gon, she senses soul-deep, searing pain…and then there is nothing, because the link becomes so firmly shielded it’s like it doesn’t even exist.

Tahl breathes through the shock of that loss of contact, and her own terrible guilt, because she can never take that decision back.

 

*          *          *          *

 

The next three years play hell with her nerves.

The pairbond is still there, but it’s shut down so tightly that Tahl fears it may stagnate, and thinks it’s only her own refusal to let it go that keeps it from fading away.  Micah tells her that it’s the same way for him, but he can’t stop poking at it, like a tongue prodding an empty socket, still searching for a missing tooth.

Qui-Gon is accepting missions from the Council, but otherwise doesn’t answer his comm.  He doesn’t respond to messages.  Tahl feels continued guilt and worry, but at this point she also just wants to shake him and call him an asshole.  She and Micah had to perform an emergency sweep of the Temple just to rescue his belongings after Crion’s death; there are two boxes of personal items waiting in her closet, all she could safely scavenge from the rubbish bins and compactors when her idiot friend emptied his quarters.

The holos and photographs and digital stills—those are harder.  Tahl has a program running in the Temple database at all times, trying to replace what may have been irretrievably lost.

Four months after the revolt on Telos, Micah earns a seat on the Jedi Council.  Orna kel Ta thinks it’s hilarious.

“Whose idea was this?” Tahl asks him, when the three of them are together that evening, after Micah’s Senate confirmation.

“No one will admit it, but I think it was Yoda,” Micah says, loosening the high collar of his formal undershirt, dark green to contrast with the pale brown of his tunics.  “I think he and Tyvokka want to scrub as much of Su Cham’s dour influence from the Council as they can.”

Orna grins.  “I say they deserve what they’re getting,” she says, and laughs when Micah gives her a wounded look.

“I’m respectable!” Micah protests.  “I _am_!  I’m the Combat Master for the Temple!”

“Since when?” Tahl asks in amazement.  He’s been aiming for the position since childhood, and she had no idea that he’s finally managed to get it.

“Since about…” he pulls up his sleeve and glances at his wrist-chrono.  “About six hours ago.”

Orna smiles in genuine pleasure.  “Congratulations, Padawan.  All of those head injuries have finally paid off.”

“Oh,” Micah says, and looks thoughtful.  “So _that’s_ why I was foolish enough to agree to this.”

Tahl laughs and gives him a playful shove.  “You’ll be good for them.  They could use some inanity in their lives.”

“Are they talking about asking anyone else?” Orna asks, taking a sip from her glass.  She brought them a bottle of Malastare ale to celebrate Micah’s appointment to the Council.  Tahl isn’t drinking it.  She likes her liver, thank you.  “I’ve been hearing that Master Bittram is thinking about stepping down, also.”

Micah nods.  “It’s not concrete, but it sounds like it’ll be Mace Windu.”

Orna raises her head, her silver-mirror eyes widening in surprise.  “Knight Windu?”

“No, they Knighted Depa last year,” Tahl says.  “He’s Master Windu, now.”

“He’s…twenty-nine?” Orna guesses.

“Thirty-one,” Micah corrects.  “He’s been a Knight for fourteen years, Master.  I think Mace knows what he’s doing by now.”

“Shit,” Orna says, amused.  “I think I need to be on Coruscant more often.  The entire lot of you are growing up so damn fast.  I could swear you still had a stubby little Padawan braid, Micah.”

“Why, yes, Master, I’m aware of the fact that my hair has decided to vacate the premises,” Micah mutters with a scowl.  “Rub it in, why don’t you?”

Orna grins, steps close, and before Micah can duck away, she’s rubbing a tight circle over his newly bared scalp.  “Gah!  Stoppit!  Fuck!  _Tahl!_ ”

Tahl smiles.  “You’re a horrible Combat Master, if you can’t defend yourself against your own Master.”

“I’m not hitting her,” Micah yelps.  “I want to live!”

“Smart boy,” says Orna, and goes to fetch another glass of ale.

Later, when the quiet celebration is over and Tahl is almost ready to go home for the night, Micah gestures at her to join him in his tiny kitchen.  He provides her with a mug of red tea, and Tahl knows at once that he has news.

“I saw Qui-Gon today,” he says.

“Gods,” she whispers, the bottom falling out of her stomach.  “Where?”

“During Confirmation.  I happened to glance down while Tyvokka was making the obligatory welcoming speech to introduce me, and he was standing in the crowd, hiding under his hood,” Micah says.  “Qui-Gon looked up when he saw that I’d noticed him, gave me a nod.  I think he approves.” 

“How does he look?” Tahl asked, wrapping her hands around the tea mug to warm them against the sudden chill she feels. 

Micah hesitates.  “Not that great.  Not that bad, either.  I’m glad Qui-Gon was here, though.  It makes me think he hasn’t completely lost his damn mind.”

Things continue, much as they always had, but for the empty part of their lives.  Micah is Tahl’s bright point, a constant that has remained much unchanged for the past thirty-eight years.  The frustration is present, too, but she’s never been less concerned about it, not with one-third of their long-lasting triad off in the far reaches of the galaxy, soul-hurt and refusing to let anyone do anything about it.

Orykan Tamarik, bless her, provides more than enough distraction.  Tahl doesn’t think they will ever have a very close bond, not with so little of Orykan’s actual training remaining.  The blue-skinned Twi’lek is a good companion, though. 

Orykan isn’t much for research, as her skills lie along those abandoned Guardian paths.  Tahl resumes those sorts of missions, much as it unsettles her to put her body in such constant danger.  Orykan is level-headed in combat situations, however, which helps calm her paranoia.  Tahl thinks she’s another one that belongs on the outskirts of the Republic, doing the dirty work that spoiled Masters like herself really would prefer to avoid. 

“You are not spoiled,” Orykan protests.  They are both covered in mud, hunched and miserable, waiting for a transport to arrive that should have been ready two days ago.  “Seriously, Master Tahl, if you’re spoiled, then I’m a whining, whingy beast.  Or have you not noticed my nonstop grumbling since we got here?”

“I think it became background noise,” Tahl admits, which makes her Padawan smile.

When they get back to the Temple, Tahl realizes that she’s got to find a balance.  She can’t handle constant combat negotiations, and Orykan could wind up dead before attaining her Mastery if she sticks to this path, especially since she wants to solo when she’s Knighted.

[New Apsilon,] Tyvokka says, when Tahl broaches the topic with him.  [The New Apsilon situation warranted the knocking of heads more than the dance of words, did it not?]

“Yes,” Tahl says, “But it was still a negotiation, not a war.  We just needed to be fierce and stern with them to end the foolishness.”

Tyvokka smiles.  [Well, then, cub.  Young Orykan already knows to be fierce.  Teach her to be stern, as well.]

It’s a good idea; Orykan adapts well to the change in instruction, and after a few months is even enthused by the process.  Their missions become less about survival and more about successes, and Tahl starts to think that maybe she could be a good teaching Master, after all.

They come home one day to find Micah waiting for them on the landing pad.  Tahl steps off of the ramp of the transport and knows from the look on his face that something unusual has happened.  “What’s wrong?” she asks.

“Dooku blocked Komari Vosa’s Trials,” he says.

For a moment, Tahl can only stare at him, stunned.

Orykan sucks in a breath.  “What happened?” she asks in a quiet voice.  Komari was of her clan during their Initiate days, and is a lifelong friend.

“Come,” Micah says, his tone alerting Tahl to the fact that he is acting as a Councilor at that moment.  “We need you both present.  There is an informal interview of Dooku pending.”

“She was infatuated with me,” is Dooku’s excuse.  Tahl _wants_ it to be an excuse, but then she sees the slump to his normally proud shoulders, and knows that it is not.

“It was not my intention for Komari to believe that the Trials were forever denied her,” Dooku says, and seats himself before Yoda, who is watching his former Padawan with mournful eyes.  “But when I realized the true nature of her feelings, I knew I could not be the one to see Komari to Knighthood.  It was my intent to inform the Council immediately upon our return that steps needed to be taken to remove her from my care.  She would never have petitioned for it on her own.”

“She disappeared…when?” Mace Windu asked, looking up from his datapad.

“During our last scheduled transport exchange,” Dooku says, and frowns.  “You have heard something?”

Mace sighs.  “It seems that she joined the Jedi assigned to the Baltizaar mission.”

Dooku closes his eyes and nods, then lifts his chin and faces them once more.  “Attempting to prove herself, I imagine.  Dear foolish Padawan.  Will they be bringing her back to the Temple?”

Mace glances at Yoda, who then looks at Micah.  “Shit,” Micah says, and settles heavily into a chair.

“Sought the Bando Gora, the Jedi team did.  A failure, the mission to Baltizaar was,” Yoda says in a soft voice.  “Casualties, there are.”

Dooku freezes.  “I see.  Komari?”

Mace looks to be caught between anger and sympathy.  “Knight Vol reports that she is not one of the survivors, or among the bodies his team is bringing back to the Temple.”

“Felt her death, have you?” Yoda asks, projecting calm.

For a moment, Dooku’s stern visage cracks, and Tahl sees a glimmer of the man underneath, frightened for his Padawan, and for himself.  “I honestly don’t know, Master,” he says, and then the mask is back in place.  “With three members of the Council present, I can make a formal declaration.  I am done with teaching, Master,” he says, and directs that last to Yoda.  “With two emotionally compromised Padawans standing as the result, I do not feel it wise to continue such a foolhardy enterprise.”

“Your first Padawan is still serving in the Outer Rim,” Tahl feels the need to point out.  She can’t argue with Dooku’s evaluation of Qui-Gon’s mental state, though.  At the moment, it’s true.

“And how long until he gets himself killed?” Dooku snaps, fire blazing in his dark eyes.  “I may be about to bury one Padawan, Master Tahl.  I am in no hurry to see the other on a pyre.”

“We’ll find her, Dooku,” Micah says, looking grim.

“You and I both know that if Komari is in the hands of the Bando Gora, there may be little left to find,” Dooku says, but the heat is gone from his words, and he lowers his head.

“Nevertheless, we will search,” Mace promises, utter sincerity upon his young face.  “Padawan Tamarik, you have been friends with Padawan Vosa for many years.  This Council would appreciate any information you can grant us about how Vosa may act if she is not with the Bando Gora, and where she might be inclined to go.”

While Micah and Mace interview her Padawan, Tahl manages to get Dooku into a quiet corner of the room, away from even Yoda’s prying eyes and ears.  “I do not mean this in offense.  Are you certain it was infatuation that Komari suffered from, and not something deeper?”

Dooku grants her a faint smile.  There is so much silver in his hair now, steadily replacing the black of his youth.  It surprises her to see it, to realize how long it has been since the days of her childhood.  “Tahl, I may be a hard-hearted man, but I once bore witness to the love Qui-Gon had for Antivar.  No matter his feelings, never did Qui-Gon let it compromise who he was, or his ability to see to his duty.  Komari…does not share in that strength.”

He turned away, and then paused.  “If he returns to the Temple, Qui-Gon will be one of the greatest assets the Jedi Order will possess.”

“Is that all he is, then?” Tahl asks with a frown.  “An asset?”

“We are all nothing more than assets of the Senate, Master Tahl,” Dooku says in a surprisingly bitter tone, and takes his leave.

 

*          *          *          *

 

When Padawan Licia brings the wreck of her best friend back from Tholatin, Tahl calls him an ass, just like she wanted to, and then cries over his broken body.  Qui-Gon pats her hand and lets her weep, but except for his initial, whispered greeting, he says nothing at all.

“Physical therapy,” the Healer in charge of Qui-Gon’s recovery says.  “And loads of it.”  Rotyll is a thin man with a pinched, harried look to him.  “It’ll be months before you have him back on the duty roster, Councilor Giett.”

Micah scowls at the Healer.  “I’m not here as a Councilor, I’m here as his damned friend.”

“Oh, my apologies,” the Healer says, and gives them a humorless smile.  “It must have been some other Councilor I heard, yelling and calling my patient a fucking bastard.”

“I don’t hear anything about the Mind Healers in all of this,” Tahl says, so that she doesn’t glare at Micah.

“Ah.”  Rotyll’s smile fades.  “I mentioned it to him.  There was some…resistance, to the idea.”

“You mean he bitched at you, too,” Micah says with a grin.

“Indeed,” the Healer murmurs.  “I’ll release him from the Ward, but only into someone else’s custody.  Given Jinn’s track record since his student’s loss, I don’t trust him to be let loose on his own recognizance.”

“I’ll do it,” Micah and Tahl say in the same breath, and then they look at each other.

“You don’t have time, T,” Micah says.  “You’ve got a Padawan.”

“And you’re a _Councilor_ ,” she retorts.

“The both of you it is, then,” Rotyll says, and goes to file the necessary paperwork before they can argue further.

They take Qui-Gon back to his quarters, the same place that he emptied after Xanatos’s loss.  He looks around the main room like he never expected to see it again.  There is a quiet stillness to him that Tahl remembers from childhood, when Qui-Gon had been soul-hurt by that thing that tried to steal into his mind.

She and Micah are both watching him, eying him as they go about the business of getting empty rooms ready to be occupied once more, but it’s still a surprise when he speaks.  “I’m surprised they’re still mine.”  Qui-Gon’s voice is soft and scratchy, his throat not yet recovered from what was done to him.  (If there is a planet that Tahl wants to see wiped from the galactic registry, Tholatin is it.)

“You weren’t dead, and you didn’t request reassignment before you left,” Micah tells him, ripping plastic covers off of the furniture.  Most of it is new.  “Therefore, the rooms are still yours.”

A ghost of a smile forms on Qui-Gon’s face.  “I suppose it’s good that I am still alive to claim them, then.”

It eases Tahl’s heart to hear those words.  She thinks, perhaps, that their chances of success in resuscitating Qui-Gon are higher than she and Micah originally thought.

Still, they plan to be cautious.  Qui-Gon is the sneakiest of their trio, and he will not be allowed leeway.  “Sit,” Tahl orders, pointing at the new couch.  Qui-Gon does so without a hint of complaint. 

 _He expects us to yell at him some more,_ Micah sends.

 _Not tonight._   She will if she has to, but not until it’s necessary.

Micah brings them tea; Tahl nudges Qui-Gon’s left hand with the mug until he uncurls his fingers and takes it from her.  His right hand is a mess of framework and bandaging, evidence of the Healers’ attempts to correct the massive amount of damage inflicted on bones and tissue.

After a long period of silence, in which Qui-Gon does nothing more than stare at his tea, he startles them again with a question.  “Has there been a memorial for Komari?”

Micah stills in the middle of raising his mug.  “You think she’s dead?”

Qui-Gon nods.  “After a year has passed, with no word of her at all?  Yes.”

“You’re probably right, but it’s not going to happen.  Until there is concrete evidence of her passing, Komari Vosa will remain in the Missing-in-Action roster,” Micah says.  “Council decree.  It’s kind of a nice change from what Su Cham mandated, considering we had two Knights wander back to the Temple after they’d both been declared dead only months after going missing.”

“And my Master?”

“Has taken a sabbatical, and is on Serreno,” Tahl says, taking comfort from the familiar ritual of speaking over fragrant tea.  “He formally declared that he will never accept another apprentice.”

“But I think some of what drove him to his home planet is left over from Galidraan,” Micah adds, frowning.  Tahl knows that things went bad during that particular mission, much as they did on Baltizaar, but the specifics have been kept quiet.

“I suppose I should go and see him,” Qui-Gon begins, but Tahl holds up her hand and shakes her head.

“You can wait until he returns.  In the meantime, you have rules to follow.”

“Rules?” Qui-Gon looks…reluctant.  Not worried, or fearful—more as if he thinks Tahl will demand more from him than he is willing to give.

“Rule number one:  You don’t get to leave the Temple again until Tahl and I sign off on your medical file,” Micah says, putting his tea down on the table.  “When we both believe you don’t intend to run off and try to kill yourself again, either by needless self-sacrifice or working yourself onto an early pyre, then we’ll talk about the duty rosters.”

Qui-Gon swallows, but nods.  “Agreed.”

“ _When_ you are allowed to resume active field work, you can be absent from this Temple no more than six months at a time,” Tahl says, giving him a glare when he looks as if he wants to argue.  “This is not negotiable, Qui-Gon Jinn.  We let it go on too long the last time, and more fools us.  If you stay away longer than that, we will come and find you, and we _will_ do our collective best to humiliate you in the process.  Is that fucking well clear?”

His eyes widen at her use of profanity.  She does not indulge very often—at least not in Basic, not since her Knighting.  “Clear,” Qui-Gon says.  “The third?”

“You don’t get to go after Xanatos until you can do it without joining him,” Micah says in a flat voice, and Qui-Gon flinches away from them, shaking his head.

“I can’t do that,” he starts to say.

“You _will_ ,” Micah growls.

“No, that’s not…” Qui-Gon gives Tahl the mug he’s holding when his hand starts to shake.  “I can’t go after him.  I—you know as well as I do, Micah.  I was supposed to kill him.”

Tahl draws in a shocked breath.  Yes, theoretically, she had known that.  The teachings in the way of the Fallen are clear.  There is to be no mercy, no escape, no chance for a Darkened Jedi to wreak havoc in the Republic.  “You can’t,” she whispers.  Not little Xan, with his impertinent smile and silver tongue and brilliant understanding of maths and government.

Qui-Gon looks at her, his eyes suddenly full of three years of grief and crippling guilt.  “You understand,” he says, as if marveling that anyone else could.

Micah sighs.  “It doesn’t matter that much at the moment, anyway.  Because Xanatos declared his intention to leave the Order, that means he’s once again an eligible heir to the governor’s seat on Telos.  We can keep an eye on him, but no one gets to touch him without Republic approval.”

Qui-Gon must not have known that; his color improves, and he at once seems more animated, more present.  Tahl wonders how long he struggled with thoughts of a Jedi Knight or Master tracking down Xanatos with the intent of execution.  “Are there any other rules I need to know of?” he asks.  The smile on his face is genuine.  “Do I need permission to piss?”

“No,” Micah says.  He’s still serious, though there is a glimmer of amusement in his eyes.  “But that could always change.  If you stop eating and drinking like a proper functioning person, I’ll make the Healers attend you twenty-six hours a day.”

The next three months are not pleasant at all.

Qui-Gon obeys their rules, and doesn’t try to thwart them by missing his therapy appointments, or the gentle left-handed sparring sessions Micah arranges, or Tahl’s sessions in the Archives, which give him something to focus on other than his physical lack of stamina or further thoughts of Xan.  It’s just that Qui-Gon performs the required tasks like he’s on remote pilot, distant and slow to pay attention to changing variables around him.

“Okay, that’s it.  I’m done playing fair,” Micah says to Tahl one evening, angry and not bothering to hide it.  “Be ready.”

“For what?” she asks.

He looks at her and smiles.  “Shh.  It’s a surprise.”

Micah, as the Temple’s newest Combat Master for the Temple, has already earned a reputation for…interesting solutions.  Her friend enlists every active Padawan and Initiate over the age of ten, and turns Qui-Gon into a Temple-roaming target. 

Initiates pounce on him from doorways.  Padawans sneak-attack him from ceiling overhangs.  Groups of little wraiths in tunics stage elaborate traps.

After falling for it for most of a week because he’s _not paying attention_ , Qui-Gon starts to respond.  He is sluggish, at first, but after another Padawan lands on his head, his instincts begin to re-emerge.

Tahl cushions Padawan Shen-Jon’s flight, so that he doesn’t wind up splattered on the Temple wall from the force of Qui-Gon’s throw.  “That’s better.  All right there, Echuu?” she asks.

Mace Windu’s newest Padawan grins at her as he picks himself up.  “Yes, Master.  Master Giett should assign us such tasks more often.  It’s fun!”

Qui-Gon rolls his eyes as the boy trots off.  “It is a conspiracy, then.  I was starting to suspect that I’d wandered into a complex game of hide-and-seek.”

“I’m sure the assaults will diminish when you stop getting caught off-guard by ten-year-olds,” Tahl says with a too-sweet smile.  The glare she gets in return is worth it.

The brace on Qui-Gon’s right hand is removed in time for Padawan Licia’s Knighting.  Mace warns Qui-Gon that if he doesn’t attend his sister-Padawan’s ceremony, he’ll be assigned to nothing but Inner-Rim aristocratic gala escort duty.

“Fuck, but he figured out how to threaten properly in short order, didn’t he?”  Qui-Gon is still visibly floored by Mace’s threat.

“Oh, yeah,” Micah agreed.  “Mace took to this job like he’d been born for it.  Now go get dressed, or you’ll wind up on a ditzy diplomat’s arm for the rest of your life.”

Qui-Gon shows up in dark browns and black, looking too somber for what is supposed to be a happy occasion.  When Tahl says as much, he seems so puzzled by the observation that Tahl realizes that it wasn’t at all intentional.  “I had to go _buy_ something, Tahl,” he says, not meeting her eyes.  She remembers, with a fresh pang of guilt, that he had nothing more than a few sets of tunics pilfered from Temple stores. 

She looks down and sees new leather boots, tall things that lace up to his knees.  “Well.  Those are nice, at least.”

He eyes her with a stern expression.  “I did not buy them for _that_ ,” he says, but there are spots of burning color in his cheeks.  “It was the only set in my size.”

That, Tahl believes, but she doesn’t think he looked very hard after finding them.  “You could get into a lot of trouble, wearing those out in the field,” she says in a bland voice.

“Well,” he returns, equally placid.  “Now it’s a challenge, isn’t it?”

She smiles and takes his hand.  He allows it, his fingers curling around hers with gentle, reassuring strength.

They don’t get a perfect recovery out of him.  When Micah suggests that Qui-Gon might want to teach a class of Padawans to pass the time, Qui-Gon refuses with such vehemence that both Tahl and Micah stare at him in shock.  “I won’t,” he says, giving them a glare that is worthy of Dooku.  “I don’t care if you make it a condition of medical release, or trap me in the Temple for the next fifty years.  I am _done_ teaching.”

“Okay,” Micah agrees in subdued astonishment.

“We didn’t make that one of your three rules,” Tahl says in reassurance.  She knows it isn’t right, but they are choosing their battles wisely, and she can recognize that this is one aspect of life that Qui-Gon is nowhere near ready for.  He doesn’t make it a formal declaration before three Council witnesses, like Dooku did, and that gives them both some hope that Qui-Gon will eventually change his mind.  Teaching has always been one of Qui-Gon’s strengths, and that is not a talent he should set aside, especially given the joy it used to bring him.

She and Micah meet one evening to confer.  “I’m ready to clear him on the physical,” Micah says, tapping his fingertips against the tabletop.  “I’ll say this much: Xanatos’s departure has given Qui-Gon some serious skills with a lightsaber.  He’s one of the best duelists in the Temple now, T.”

“Stop calling me T,” Tahl says, but it’s a protest of habit, at this point.  “Aside from the teaching thing, I don’t think we have any ground left to cover.  Any further improvement Qui-Gon makes, he’s going to do out there, not in the Temple.  If we keep him much longer, he’ll just go stir-crazy.”

They release him from Temple confinement three months after Licia’s Knighting.  Qui-Gon accepts their decision by bolting from the Temple at the first Council-granted opportunity.  Tahl feels like she’s holding her breath for the entire time he’s gone, and only breathes all of that tension out when he returns a month later.

“I promised,” Qui-Gon tells her quietly, when Tahl meets his shuttle on the landing platform.  “I meant it, Tahl.”

“Good,” she says, and they walk back into the Temple together.

He keeps his word, and a year and a half later, is present when the Council declares Orykan Tamarik a Jedi Knight.  Qui-Gon is one of the first to applaud when Tahl unwinds Orykan’s elaborate leather _lekku_ binding, the mark of her apprenticeship, and presses it into her former Padawan’s hands.

“Congratulations,” Qui-Gon murmurs to her, while Orykan accepts the well-wishes of her friends.  “It is good that you and Micah have both had such brilliant successes.”

“ _You_ have had a brilliant success of your own,” Tahl reminds him.  “Or have you forgotten Kimal’s existence?”

Qui-Gon shakes his head.  “I took a mostly trained Padawan and escorted him through the rest of his apprenticeship.  It’s not the same.”

Tahl glowers at him.  “Don’t make me punch you on my Padawan’s Knighting day,” she warns, wondering if he is even aware of the insult he has just paid them both.

Qui-Gon grants her a faint smile of apology and wanders off.  Tahl is starting to regret allowing him to get away with his declaration against teaching.  This constant self-deprecation of his skills, this self-punishment, is _irritating_.

He doesn’t touch anyone, either, which is a lapse Tahl didn’t notice until it was too late.  She misses the feel of her friend’s hand in her own, the reassuring bulk of Qui-Gon slouching against her while they both work through some hoary research problem.

Micah isn’t worried, or at least not as worried as Tahl thinks he should be.  She gives him an irritated look; he holds up his hands in protest.  “The troll thinks that Qui-Gon’s next Padawan is already among us, Tahl.  That’s why I’m not worried.”

Tahl isn’t convinced.  Qui-Gon isn’t going to be willing to accept any student, and that’s the entire problem.

 

*          *          *          *

 

Orna kel Ta dies in service to the Order and to Judicial Forces.  It’s the exact sort of fate that Tahl always feared Micah would succumb to, and the reality of it shakes her.  Brek Fa’an brings home the body of her grand-Master, looking sober and quite literally singed from battle.

Micah is given the honor of lighting Orna’s pyre, as he is her only living Padawan.  It seems as if all of Orna’s students live fast and die young, as has Orna herself.  When he touches the torch to the wood of her pyre, assembled in the outdoor Memorial Garden, Micah sighs and lowers his head, weeping as the flames begin to catch hold.

Tahl, Qui-Gon, Micah, Orykan, Brek, Mace, Adi Gallia, Licia—they all get completely smashed for Orna kel Ta’s wake as they watch the pyre burn.  It is far from the first funeral Tahl has ever attended, but this is the first to hit so close, so hard.  Orna was a friend to them all, a Jedi Master who never treated anyone as less than worthy of her time and companionship.

Adi Gallia sings, not one of the old traditional Jedi ballads, but a new song that Tahl has heard on the ’Net over the past few months.

_“All that I am,_

_You let me be,_

_I will remember you,_

_For all that you've done,_

_And given to me.”_

Micah smiles.  “Oh, good choice.  She’d like that.”

To Tahl’s surprise, it’s Qui-Gon who picks up the second verse.  Her friend rarely sings, and claims to be very bad at it, but that isn’t true at all.  In his soft baritone, he sings:

_“What a wonderful life,_

_For as long as you've been at my side,_

_And I want you to know,_

_I'll miss you so.”_

Adi joins him for the last of it, a vibrant, clear soprano counterpoint.

_“And though our days come to an end,_

_No, I'll never love like this again,_

_What a wonderful life, my friend.”_

“Shit,” Micah says, and starts to cry again.  Brek is almost sobbing over her bottle.

“It’s a good tradition, songs for the dead,” Mace says.  He is the only one of them not leaking around the eyes, but tears are a rare thing for the Haruun Kal.  As it is, he is definitely not sober.  “Thank you, Adi.”

Adi nods.  “Orna is the one who finally convinced my Master that she would be an idiot not to train me.”

“She saved my life,” Brek says, and hiccups.  “She pulled me out of the corridor, put out my burning tunics, and then went back in to save the last three officers who were trapped behind me.  And then she didn’t come back!” she wails.

Licia puts her arm around Brek.  “It isn’t your fault, sweetie,” she says, and rocks Brek in place.

It’s Orykan who holds up her glass, filled with some of Micah’s vile Malastare liquid horror.  “To Orna kel Ta, a wonderful friend,” she says.

They all follow Orykan’s lead, with glass or bottle, and no one’s hands are steady.  “To Orna,” Tahl repeats with the others, drinks, and then settles in to watch the pyre burn low.

 

*          *          *          *

 

She has mostly returned to the research of a Consular, but even Tahl can lift her nose from a scroll long enough to realize that the Mid-Rim is getting violent, more so than usual.  “Do you want me to come home?” she asks the Council that evening, sitting in a rented room with her comm.  She could have used a terminal, but a brawl started in the street, and there are satellites she can signal-bounce from, anyway.

“Hold tight there for now, if it’s still safe to finish the research you were working on,” Micah tells her, but he looks concerned.

“We may have an assignment for you, but we’re waiting for confirmation from a different team,” Mace says.  He looks grim, which is not informative at all, because the young Master’s default expression is somber, grave seriousness.  “I don’t want to send you someplace that runs counter to your skills, especially as a solo assignment, but we may not have a choice.”

Tahl thinks about the resurgence in combat missions she saw with Orykan, and nods.  “Let me know.  It will probably be fine.”

Two weeks later, as she sits in a cell on Melida/Daan with her vision getting blurry, Tahl has plenty of time to regret those innocent, stupid words.  This was supposed to have been a simple bid at gaining new information on the planet’s situation, to make way for a diplomatic team to resolve the long-standing conflict. 

Instead, the Daan took severe umbrage at her presence.  She’s been hit in the head at least twice, and one strike was against her temple.  When her head does not ache so intensely she wants to claw her face off, Tahl worries.  There is no medical attention being granted the prisoners; she can’t even tell her jailers of her anesthesia allergy because no one _cares_.

Tahl can speak to one of the other inmates through the thin walls.  She lies on her bunk and blinks up at the drab gray ceiling, listening to the poor soul in the next cell discuss his grandchildren.  “They’re all alone, my dears,” the old man is saying.  “And that’s the horror of it all, Master Jedi.  The Melida and the Daan both have warred for so long that they have forgotten their obligations, and our children roam the streets without us.”

“That’s awful,” Tahl says, feeling her head throb, concerned because she can no longer discern the cracked lines across the plaster ceiling.  She hopes she isn’t dying.  She hopes that Micah notices that her comm goes unanswered, and sends someone to rescue her.

It would be nice if Micah would get off of his ass and rescue her himself, she thinks, but that isn’t fair.  He is coordinating defense teams across the Republic, fighting this strange wave of violence.  She is not his first priority, and that is what’s proper.

“Great blasted fuck,” Tahl says aloud, a statement her fellow captive wholeheartedly agrees with.

The next time she opens her eyes, it is dark in the cells.  She blinks and glances around, but can detect no hint of light whatsoever.  “Did the power go out?”

“What, Master Jedi?” her companion asks after a moment.  Tahl feels a bit of guilt at interrupting his rest.

“The power.  Did the power go out?  Are the lights off?  It’s very dark in here.”  She should crawl around and investigate, but her head hurts so much it feels like she might come apart.

The other prisoner snorts.  “They never turn out the lights, Master Jedi.  Prisoners aren’t to be well-rested.  It’s as bright as sunlight in here.”

“Oh.”  Tahl licks her too-dry lips, and tries very hard not to be terrified.

She is vaguely aware of being rescued.  She thinks she greets Qui-Gon by name, but then everything becomes a haze of pain, and it is hard to know what’s going on when her eyes see nothing but darkness.

She wakes up in the Temple.  Tahl knows this because she recognizes the smells and sounds and the _feel_ of it. 

She can see nothing at all.

She reaches up and touches her eyes; winces because _ow_ , fingertips do not belong on her eyeballs.  That is reassuring, at least, that no one, no creature removed her eyes while she lingered, unconscious, in that cell.  There is a slick feeling on her temple, where healing must have been performed for the skin to be so new.

She hears footsteps, and reaches without thinking about it.  She knows Micah by touch and Force-presence.  He is worried and fretful.

“Hey, T,” he says in a croak.

“Well, that’s not reassuring in the slightest.”  The words come out in a raspy whisper.  “What’s wrong with my eyes, Micah Giett?”

“You’re blind,” he says, after an uncomfortably long pause.

“I know _that_ ,” Tahl says in exasperation.  “Why?”

“Degeneration of the optic nerves,” Micah explains.  “The damage was too extensive; by the time Qui-Gon brought you back to the Temple, it could not be healed.  At this point, your only option is surgery.”

Tahl isn’t sure what to focus on first: the sharp flash of Micah’s anger that accompanies mention of their best friend’s name, or the surgery.  She decides on the latter, for the moment.  “They would have to clone replacement nerve lines and surgically implant them, you mean?”  She knows from her own paranoid studies of surgical techniques that nerve replacement isn’t easy, and works, perhaps, fifty percent of the time.

“Right,” Micah says, with a hint of relief.  “The Healers do seem pretty confident that you could get most of your sight back.  You’d just have to…well.  You know.”

“Not panic about it,” Tahl says in a dry voice.  She’s well aware of her own shortcomings on that front…

…and the terror she felt on Melida/Daan has disappeared.  Despite the nightmares of her childhood, the prospect of sitting in the dark brings her no fear.  The difference between this, and those old, terrible dreams, is that Tahl is still _aware._   She can feel by touch and sense the Force, knows that Micah hasn’t slept enough and that there is a cup of water on a table next to her.

It is, quite frankly, not nearly as bad as she thought blindness would be.

She wonders if scrolls will hold their same appeal.

“Why are you angry at Qui-Gon?” Tahl asks.  “It’s not his fault I can’t see the hand in front of my face.”

She feels a burst of amusement from Micah, because he _is_ waving his hand before her eyes.  Then that flare of anger returns.  “You wouldn’t have seen the update.  Qui-Gon sent a missive to the Council, not long before you went missing on Melida/Daan.  He agreed to accept Obi-Wan Kenobi as his Padawan.”

 _Finally!_ Tahl thinks.  Mace, Yoda, and Micah have been scheming about getting that boy properly apprenticed for months.  Honestly, she is surprised Yoda didn’t claim him and save them all the trouble. 

Then the realization comes that Micah would not be angry about this, and a frisson of worry cramps her belly.  Qui-Gon brought her home, yes, but nowhere in her hazy recollection is there even a hint of Initiate Kenobi’s dark auburn hair, or his spiky presence.  “What happened, Micah?”

He tells her.  For the first time in her life, Tahl is seized by the desire to throttle someone she loves.

Qui-Gon comes to visit her, some hours later after she has napped again, still affected by the drugs the Healers gave her.  Tahl can sense that he expects some sort of pleasure at his visit.  He is not getting it.

“Out!” she shouts, pointing her finger at what she hopes is the door.  She hasn’t quite figured out doorways, yet.  They don’t chime in her senses like people or certain objects.  (Water she can find, styluses she cannot, and floors are tricky because this strange new ability didn’t come with depth perception.)

“Tahl?” Qui-Gon’s voice is full of surprise.  “What’s wrong?”

“You are,” she hisses, and all at once she is shaking with fury.  “If I had known you were as broken as this, I would never have signed off on your medical release four years ago!”

“You don’t know of what you’re speaking,” Qui-Gon says, and never has her friend sounded more like his idiot fucking Master.

“I know that you left a thirteen-year-old boy in a _warzone_ ,” Tahl snaps at him.  “You can say he chose to leave the Order all you wish, but I will bet every last drop of blood in my body that you did nothing to convince him otherwise!”

Qui-Gon hesitates.  “No.  I did not.”

At least he will admit to it.  It does nothing to lessen her anger.  “Go,” she says, waving her hand again.  “Get the hell out of my presence.”  It takes all of her willpower not to say, “Get out of my sight,” and damn, but that will be hard to adjust for. 

“I don’t want to speak to you again until you fix this fucking mess you’ve made.”

Qui-Gon leaves without another word.  Tahl throws herself back against the pillows of her bed, huffs out a sigh, and tries not to cry. 

The Healers try to insist upon surgery.  Tahl might have been tempted, under normal circumstances, but her life has suddenly filled with so much stress that the pressure to make a decision triggers her obstinance.  “No,” she tells Healer Ra’suul.  “Bugger off.”

“We can ensure that your difficulties with anesthesia will not be a concern—” he begins, but she holds up her hand.  She hopes the glare on her face is appropriate.  It’s hard to understand the effect of her expression when she cannot see the results.

“I said I would not.  I will not.  I am going back to my quarters, and I am going to figure out how to live my life, just the way I am,” Tahl tells him in a firm voice.  “I don’t need my eyes to be a Jedi.”

“But this is a problem that is easy to fix!” Ra’suul insists.  “You are letting your fear of surgery cloud your judgment, Master Tahl.”

“Maybe,” she admits, and turns her head away from him.  “But this is not a choice about living or dying.  This is an inconvenience, a change in the way I do things.  It will not keep me from the duty rosters, or impede my ability to function.”

In fact, Tahl is almost excited.  She has always liked learning new things, and there is suddenly so _much_ before her.  Converting datapads, learning to read from paper without eyes—she knows it’s possible, it must be, the Miraluka can do it—navigating by sound and Force sense and sensation; already her nose is so much more sensitive than it was, even as a child.

Tahl has lost the old fear of constant, unceasing darkness.  It is such a liberating sensation that she sometimes breathes as if she’s been running.

Running.  Now that will be an interesting skill to re-learn.

Micah is the one who leads her home, keeping up a babbling commentary on hallways and buttons and automatic walkways and lifts.  It’s actually useful, and helps Tahl to match her current location with the Temple map she’s constructed in her head over her long years of traversing its grand halls.

“Okay, so, I did research, and Yoda helped, and we have kind of restructured your apartment,” Micah says, after letting Tahl grope around on the wall to open her own door.  Micah understands her need for independence, far more than that idiot Healer.  Tahl is glad.  If both of her friends had lost their damn minds at once, she doesn’t know what she would do.  She doesn’t have enough of this new coordination learned yet to punch them both.

“Mic, the hardest part of all of this is going to be finding the doors,” Tahl tells him, walking forward with careful steps until she can reach out and touch the couch.  Center of the room.  Good placement: allows her direct access to the outer door, doesn’t block the kitchen.

“Doors?” he repeats.  She can sense him following at her heels, a steady presence.  She can discern his worry among the threads of determination he also feels.  Micah desperately wants her to be safe and happy, but still has doubts about leaving her on her own.

Tahl tilts her head.  She can sort of “see” the layout of the kitchen, and the ’fresher is easy to discern because of all the water lines.  “I can’t sense walls, not in any truly useful way.  Doors don’t show up at all.  I have to find them by touch.”

“That sounds…entirely fucked up,” Micah says.

She smiles.  “It is, a bit.  If you’re really that worried about me, by the way, you can sleep on my couch for a few days.  Or in my bed—I like my couch.  I think I might take up residence there, since I will have one less door to contend with.”

He relaxes.  “Okay.  Yeah, that does make me freak out a bit less.  I can only stay two days, though.  There’s about to be this big clusterfuck out near Dac.”

“You mean a continuation of the clusterfuck the Mid-Rim systems have been dealing with?” Tahl asks, and feels a moment’s relief when she passes into her kitchen without bumping into anything.  That doorway may be wide enough to prevent future accidents.

“Something like that, yeah,” Micah agrees.  “The Mon Calamari and the Quarren are having another argument about who should control the throne.  I expect to be in the thick of things for weeks.”

“The joyous life of a Councilor,” Tahl says, letting her hands seek out her tea kettle.  She can feel her eyes sort of drifting around, almost as if she is still trying to focus on what she does, or take in the details of things around her.  She decides to keep the habit.  Her eyes, she has been told, do not look damaged.  It may come in handy, later, for others to have no knowledge of her handicap.

She puts the kettle under the water, head cocked, listening to the pitch of the flow change as the vessel fills.  She cuts the tap and dips one finger into the cool water, glad when she finds it at the right level.  Micah fills the air with chatter about Council business and the classes he teaches to the Padawans.  It makes things seem normal. 

This _is_ normal.  The new normal.  This is how things will be.

It isn’t all that bad.

 

*          *          *          *

 

She likes Obi-Wan.  The stigma of the failed Padawan follows him like a cloud, but she ignores it when others do not.  More fools, them.  Yes, Obi-Wan made the decision to leave the Order, but Tahl is capable of recognizing extenuating circumstances.  It takes two to create such a large mess, and one of those two is a Jedi Master who _knows better._

Besides, the kid stopped a war at age thirteen.  Not even Qui-Gon can say that, and her friend is supposed to be the diplomatic expert for ending bloody conflicts.

Tahl hasn’t quite forgiven Qui-Gon yet. 

She will, eventually; she knows that.  Still, Tahl is not above making him squirm and suffer for being such a giant ass.

Tahl gets to know Obi-Wan Kenobi in bits and pieces, here and there, after his return from Melidaan and subsequent probation.  It is all his fault that Tahl winds up with her second Padawan.  Bant Eerin, Mon Calamarian Initiate: the little shadow who trailed Obi-Wan throughout the Temple when Xanatos started playing his stupid games.  Tahl likes that kind of dogged determination.  She suffers from a pretty big case of it, herself.

She doesn’t know if Bant is meant to be a Consular, but there is no doubt that her Padawan is going to need the training that allows her to find out.  Tahl is not on the disabled list, but she isn’t yet up to missions like the ones she shared with Orykan, either.

Tahl enlists the help of a young Knight, a Nautolan named Kit Fisto, that she knew before she lost her sight; Fisto trained for combat, but started walking a Consular’s path after his Knighting.  Tahl was one of his initial guides.  He has a good heart, and tends to think almost anything is funny, if viewed from the correct perspective.

He also has not yet taken a Padawan.  Micah says that Kit is Padawan-shy.  The arrangement solves both of their difficulties, and dear Bant gets the bonus of having someone to swim with.  (Underwater combat training?  Not something Tahl can teach, even if she could see.)

She spends months adjusting to both her blindness and her new Padawan’s presence, and finds neither a hardship.  Bant loves to be helpful, but doesn’t treat her Master like she is broken, which Tahl appreciates. 

Paper is an entirely new realm for her.  She always examined the ancient texts and scrolls with her eyes, or with the magnification tools.  Now she runs her fingers across pages, fascinated by what she can discern.  Despite the thin layer of spray-on gel, protection that keeps the oils of her skin from damaging the paper, Tahl can feel every single indentation that makes up each letter, each word, each glyph or symbol.  It is a new way to read, and in some cases she finds mistakes that were erased, little details that her eyes would never have noticed.  She worried, at first, that it would be hard to learn this new method of reading, but it’s…it’s _easy._

“Well, c’mon, Tahl,” Micah says, when he returns from the Mid-Rim, three months after his departure.  “Your gift was always languages.  Why shouldn’t it be easy?”

Tahl runs the thumbs of both hands along her fingertips, which feel slick and ultra-sensitive, even after she’s removed the gel at the end of her day.  “Maybe,” she concedes, and wonders at all of these new senses that flooded in to replace her sight.

Yoda gifts her with a droid.  She hates that thing with a fierce, fiery passion.  There has to be a reason he gave her such a useless clunk of a helper, but Tahl cannot fathom why, unless it’s because he wants her to take her lightsaber to the damn droid.

Right now, she’s _lightsaber shy_ , which is ridiculous.  She trained blindfolded, for Force’s sake!  Whatever her hesitation, not even Micah has been able to coerce her down to the training salles.  Tahl tells him she isn’t ready yet; it’s true, she isn’t, but she doesn’t know what progress to make to _become_ ready.

Qui-Gon visits her when Bant is away with Kit, sits down on the couch next to Tahl without an invitation, and says, “Feliticia Mar is getting married on Devoria.”

Tahl lifts her head.  The datapad on her lap broadcasts audio, and she doesn’t need to look down at it, but she can’t seem to help herself.  “Hasn’t she reached some sort of quota?  This will be the fourth time, won’t it?”

“The _eighth_ time,” Qui-Gon corrects.  “If I didn’t know any better, I would suspect she eats her mates, thus the need to replenish them.”

Tahl smiles.  Skae’s sisters, Feliticia and Farrala Mar, are two entirely different creatures.  Farrala has been married to the same two Zabrak males for almost fifty years, whereas Feliticia can’t seem to make up her mind.  “She invited you, I take it?”

“She did, and since she’s marrying a member of the ruling council, it’s not an invitation I can turn down.” 

Tahl turns her head in Qui-Gon’s direction.  “Wait, she’s marrying a woman?  I thought Feliticia tried that and decided it wasn’t for her.”

“You’re confusing Devoria with Devaron again,” Qui-Gon says.  “Devoria is less strict about all-female leadership than Devaron.  Feliticia is marrying one of Devoria’s two male officials.”

“Ah,” Tahl nods, amused.  “Well, at least then I won’t have to be concerned about a bunch of Devorian females turning you and Obi-Wan into their servants.”

Qui-Gon’s presence darkens with sudden anger.  “They have forbidden Obi-Wan from accompanying me.”

“Did you have another fight with Mace?” Tahl asks, because it’s easier than giving in to her own temper.  Thank goodness the end of that idiotic punishment is drawing close. 

“There was lots of shouting,” Qui-Gon says, and leans back with a sigh.  “But he said something that I agreed with.”

“Well.  That’s new,” Tahl says, and fights the urge to look smug when he swears under his breath.

“Would you be gracious enough to allow Obi-Wan to stay with you?  I noticed that Knight Fisto has kidnapped your Padawan again.”  There is a thread of hope in the query; it makes her wonder what, exactly, Mace said to him.

“I would love to have the company,” Tahl says, and Qui-Gon wraps his arm around her shoulders in an abbreviated hug, much like he used to do, long years ago.

She gets over her lightsaber shyness pretty damn fast when those Offworld assholes try to kill Obi-Wan.  Tahl wraps his chilled body in her cloak, feeling tacky, warm blood on her fingertips.  She calls for assistance on her comm with shaking hands, and then swears and weeps bitter tears while she waits.  She hasn’t felt this helpless since she first woke up in the dark.

Shia’nelal is a brilliant little girl, but once they’ve both seen Obi-Wan safely into the hands of the Healers, she becomes a very tired little girl.  When Tahl senses Mace approach, Shia’nelal is asleep on her lap, warm and happy and drooling into Tahl’s tunics.  The young Twi’lek girl’s parents are still missing, though Tahl knows that they will be found soon.  Red Lethan Twi’leks are not exactly abundant on Coruscant, and that fact is probably what turned Shia’nelal into a target.  If Obi-Wan had not glimpsed the Offworld miners hauling the girl into that alley and gone straight to her rescue, Tahl has no doubt that Shia’nelal would never have been seen again.

“I’ve just returned from clean-up,” Mace tells her in a soft voice, mindful of the sleeping toddler.  “It looks like Obi-Wan tagged two of the Offworld miners, you killed two more, and the final pair were captured by Judicial about thirty minutes ago.”

Sweet Force.  Tahl closes her eyes (still habit) and leans her head back against the wall.  Six hulking brutes, all of them ready to defile a four-year-old child…and her rescuer.  “Any fallout to deal with?”

“No.  It’s an obvious case of self-defense, and they each had previous records for assault, all on Core Worlds.”

Tahl nods.  “Judicial wants the survivors, I suppose.”

“I doubt they’ll live long enough to see trial.  The general population in our local prison doesn’t think highly of child rapists,” Mace says, and while he is still quiet, there is hard steel in his voice.  Tahl knows that he will not be terribly concerned if the Offworld miners turn up dead.

“How is Obi-Wan?”

Tahl holds out her free hand in invitation.  When Mace accepts it, wrapping fingers around her palm in a strong grip, she says, “He was clinically dead for about a minute before the Healers got him back.”

“Shit,” Mace breathes.  Tahl can almost taste the guilt he projects, along with a deep concern.  Mace likes Obi-Wan, even if Obi-Wan is not yet aware of that.  “Sith damn it.  And now?”

“Terza thinks that if she can get him talking, he’ll be all right.”  Tahl refuses to think any further than that.  She feels frozen inside.  Later, there will be shock, and her own crushing guilt, but for now there is nothing to do but wait, and hold on to the sleeping girl in her arms.

Two days later, after she escorts Shia’nelal to the creche, Tahl returns to the Ward.  Obi-Wan is still her charge, and she wants to stay close, even though Jale Terza is now certain of his recovery.

Mace meets her just inside the Ward proper.  “Just to let you know, I’ve terminated Obi-Wan Kenobi’s probation.”

“Why?” she asks.  She wonders if it was due to Obi-Wan’s injury, but no; Mace is radiating satisfaction, and Tahl is almost certain there is a rare, wide smile on his face.

“Because he just bitched me out,” Mace says, and now she knows he’s smiling.  The pleasure of it is in his voice.  “I’ve been waiting for him to put his foot down and tell me off for almost two years, now.”

“You had better tell me,” Tahl says, intrigued.

Mace takes her elbow, which she allows, and leads her to the chairs that line the wall, making up the Ward’s public waiting area.  She takes a seat without help—he earns points by not trying to assist—and then he sits close.

“Kenobi’s biggest flaw has always been his willingness to be a doormat,” Mace says bluntly.  “When he was a younger Initiate, that boy wouldn’t put up with anything if he thought you were incorrect.  His saving grace was his willingness to apologize, to learn and accept those times when he was the one in the wrong.  When he turned twelve, that aspect of his personality vanished.  Oh, he would still apologize, and learn, and Force help the fool that tried to hurt anyone he cared about,” Mace went on, when Tahl turned her head in his direction in surprise.  “But he would no longer stand up for himself.”

“My Padawan has explained to me that Bruck Chun began bullying other children in the creche around that time, particularly those smaller than he was,” Tahl says.  Her dear Bant had been one of Chun’s victims, and his eventual target when he decided to join with Xanatos.

“We knew that _something_ was going on, but not what,” Mace admits.  “We suspected that there was animosity between Chun and Kenobi, but until Chun acted against the Order, we had no idea that it was mostly one-sided.  Tahl, we had to get that information from the other Initiates and the new Padawans.  You couldn’t pry it out of Obi-Wan, and believe me, we tried.”

“Yes, I’ve noticed that he shares a lot of unfortunate traits with his Master,” Tahl replied.  That kind of bull-headed stubbornness suits Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon very well in the field, but in regards to taking care of themselves?  Not so much.

She gets Obi-Wan’s company for two more weeks, and his recovery is fast.  The therapists are galled by how cavalier he treats the abuse of his body, but Obi-Wan tells her, Mace, the Healers, and anyone else who will listen that he is much more concerned with the fact that he almost died.

Without a word spoken, Tahl, Mace, and Terza all agree not to mention his actual, clinical death to him.  Obi-Wan is doing well; why give him some new thing to be concerned with, when it’s no longer a concern at all?  There is no doubt that the boy understands the seriousness of what happened to him.

Tahl doesn’t argue with Obi-Wan’s insistence on not telling Qui-Gon.  They both understand what a horrible idea that is, at least for now.

They start to bond over music.  Tahl introduces him to the bass-heavy music that she likes, the dance songs that arise from the club district.  Obi-Wan plays the well-known ballads of her youth, drum-beat driven rhythms that tend to inspire.  She accuses him of selecting music that he thinks she’ll like, instead of catering to his own tastes.

“This is to my own tastes!” he insists.  There is a hint of insult in his voice.  “Have you _listened_ to what they’re playing on the ’Net broadcasts lately?  It’s awful!”

This year’s preference leans towards vocals-free music with a sauntering, surrealist tone.  Tahl grimaces as she listens, it’s so bland.  “You win,” she says.  “Let’s go back to the old stuff.”

She’s never had a coding protégé before.  When Tahl gained Orykan, the Twi’lek had already reached the end of her need to learn about computers and interfaces, and didn’t have much talent for it, in any case.  Bant is ready to be educated, but is still completely ignorant about all of it except for what the Initiates are taught in the creche.

Obi-Wan, like Tahl, had not been content with that.  Tahl finds this out when she’s swearing over code lines one evening.

“You…you—” she reaches into her Altiri vocabulary, because a problem this stubborn deserves obscure sentiment.  “ _Fla-titi-reespitti!”_

She doesn’t realize that Obi-Wan is listening in on her work.  “Try six six seven, jinto tyree, hit the command line and access the tertiary server with the code you’re already using.”

It works.  Tahl turns her head in his direction.  “Very intuitive, young Padawan.  Any other tricks up your sleeves?”

“A couple,” Obi-Wan says, shy and wary and cautious.  Tahl resists the urge to smile.

“Tell me, Obi-Wan:  How would you access the resources of a Mark Two Tiberion platform?”

“Master Tahl?”

“Yes, Obi-Wan?”

“What the hell is a Tiberion?” he asks her, and she laughs.  The Tiberion platform fell out of favor sometime after her Knighting.  It’s no wonder he’s never heard of it.  Still, there are some old stations that use the platform, relying on it for life support and gravity control.  It’s a stable bit of work; no harm in Obi-Wan learning it from her.

That’s a lesson that gets out of hand, fast.

When Bant comes back from her travels with Kit Fisto, Tahl and Obi-Wan are comfortable with each other.  They celebrate Bant’s arrival by inadvertently depowering half the Temple with their coding experiments. 

Tahl can’t see the loss of light, but Obi-Wan says, “Uh-oh,” the constant whine/thrum of energy through the walls ceases, and Bant marches out of her room with an indignant, “Master, what did you _do_?”

By the time Qui-Gon returns to reclaim his Padawan, they are friends.

 

*          *          *          *

 

Tyvokka dies several weeks into the Stark Conflict, the short feud that will later be labeled the Stark Hyperspace War.  Tahl doesn’t need Plo Koon’s sober, weary comm call to know it; she feels it like a sudden, sharp pain in her heart.  In the space of a breath, a bright point in her mind goes dark, and she staggers, shocked by its absence.

“Master,” she whispers, and covers her face with her hands to weep, right in the middle of the library.

Tahl attends his pyre at the war’s conclusion, and she hates it, because all she can feel is grief and the heat of the flames.  This isn’t like watching and paying tribute to the fallen.  This is standing around like a useless fucking lump while her beloved Master’s body is turned to ash.

At some point, Qui-Gon joins her, and holds her close.  Not long after that, Micah brackets her, offering the same comfort she gave him at Orna’s funeral, not so long ago.

Two young voices rise in haunting, beautiful harmony.  Tahl can’t identify them until she reaches out with the Force to find Obi-Wan and Terza’s Healer apprentice, Abella.  Obi-Wan has a tenor that’s still rough around the edges from youth, while Abella has a sweet, high, clear soprano.  Their voices shouldn’t work together, but they do, and they honor the fallen Master with one of the old songs of the Order.

Plo Koon is given Tyvokka’s Council seat, on their Master’s dying recommendation.  Mace Windu becomes Head of the Order.  The records have lost track of ages and specific birth dates after so many thousands of years, so as far as the current Jedi are concerned, he is the youngest Master to ever hold the position.

Her brother-Padawan brings her their Master’s lightsaber.  Tahl holds the hilt in her hands, touching the familiar wooden inlays with her fingers, and wonders that her eyes can be so broken and still produce so many stupid tears. 

“Do you wish to keep it, T?” Plo asks her.  “I have put aside certain items of Tyvokka’s, as his will or the Force has bid me.  This is the last thing remaining.”

It should frustrate her that Plo Koon took up the task of settling Tyvokka’s affairs without involving her, but Tahl has to admit it was probably for the best.  Her Master’s quarters still felt like such a _home_ to her that Tahl may well have tried to claim everything the Wookiee had ever owned.

Tahl swallows.  “For now, I’ll keep it,” she says.  “I don’t know if it’s for a purpose or not, Plo.  I just know that I’d like to have it nearby.”

Plo rests his hand on her shoulder.  She can feel his grief, raw and thick and so much like her own.  “Sister Padawan, that is all the reason you need.”

 

*          *          *          *

 

Epilogue:

There is a knock on Tahl’s door, two hours before midnight.  True to form, she is not sleeping, because who can sleep when the news is this interesting?  She had to sit on the sidelines for the entirety of the Yinchorri uprising and the new accord, and that isn’t any fun at all.  The best part has been reviewing Obi-Wan’s initial write-up for the treaty and founding of the Yinchorri branch of Judicial Forces.  The kid can write some thick legalese, enough to make hardened Senators cry.

She still has to shake that thought, sometimes.  Obi-Wan hasn’t been that same kid for two years, now.

“Stop knocking and come in, Micah,” Tahl says, reaching for her tea cup only to find it empty.  “You can be useful and make me more tea,” she informs him when the door opens.

“Then my timing is perfect!” Micah says.  He sounds too-cheerful again; he’s nervous, but Tahl cannot discern what he’s nervous about through her awareness of broadcast emotion _or_ the pairbond. 

He jangles as he walks, the metallic clinking of brace parts coming together and parting as it does the job of assisting his steps.  “How do you feel?” Tahl asks.

“Enlightened,” Micah says, which is an odd response.  “Also, owie.  This thing is a bitch to get used to.”

Tahl thinks it’s unlikely that he is yet recovered from the injury he received on Yinchorr.  She went to see both Micah and Obi-Wan in the Ward, and was hard-pressed to decide who was worse off, that first day.  She had never even _seen_ a case of psychic overextension before.

“Make my tea, then come over here and sit next to me.  You can ditch the noisy thing, and I’ll give you a scalp massage.”  Tahl is willing to pamper him, and be shameless about it.  Qui-Gon told her that Micah almost died, and…no.  Just _no_.  She’s stood near enough pyres in the past few years.

“Why?” Micah asks.  “I mean, I’m making the tea.  I just—why the head rub?”

There is…something in his voice that she doesn’t recognize.  Plaintive?  Curious?  Baffled?  Tahl isn’t sure.  “Because I like to do so,” she answers him.

“Yes, but _why_?” Micah asks again. 

Tahl gives the same reply that she’s always given him.  “Because I love you.”

“Oh, gods, he’s right— _I’m right._   I am a fucking idiot,” Micah says, accompanied by disturbing clankings of mug and tea kettle.  When he approaches her, Tahl smells no tea and knows that he has abandoned both.  “Tahl, how often have you told me that over the years?”

“Several times,” she says, her head turned in his direction as she listens and feels.  Trepidation/hope/ _longing?_

Tahl holds her breath, rather than gasp in surprise.  Those are things she had always hoped to feel from Micah, but never had it come to pass.

“And I always just assumed you meant platonic friendship crap,” Micah says, with no little self-deprecation.  “You meant more than that, didn’t you?”

Tahl smiles.  “Always.”

Micah falters in his approach, hovering just out of her physical reach.  “Like…always-always?  Or just recent-always?”

They’re finally having this conversation.  They really are.  Tahl feels like her heart is swelling, like she wants to hyperventilate, like she’s serene and at peace with the universe. 

Love is so conflicting.

“Since I was nine years old, Micah.”

“Since you were….wait.  What?” Micah yelps.

She can’t stop the grin that spreads across her face.  “Didn’t you know?  Slamming a member of the opposite sex into a wall is a Noorian love custom.”

Micah finally comes close, sitting down on the couch next to her with a sudden, heavy thump.  Tahl can’t help but feel Micah’s pain, so she places a hand on his leg.  There is heat beneath her palm, too much of it.  She soothes aching, tired muscles, unused to taking on this new strain of locomotion.

Micah lays his hand over hers.  His touch is gentle, not cavalier as is his usual.  “I can’t—I can’t let you slam me into any walls, not without pissing off a horde of Healers,” he says in a quiet voice.  “But can we just say you did, and this time I got the hint?”

“We’d have to say that you and the wall met many times,” Tahl can’t resist saying.

Micah sighs.  “Yeah, I deserved that.  I mean, shit, is this why you never dated anyone?”

Tahl tilts her head.  “In a sense.  Not for lack of looking.  I just never met anyone else that I felt the same way about.”

Micah groans.  “Oh, gods.  Tahl, I’m sitting here realizing how many times I’ve talked about my sordid, sexual affairs in front of you.  I am a giant, inconsiderate _ass_.  Why the hell would you ever want to be with me?”

Tahl picks up his hand and holds it with both of hers.  “Because you have always been kind, loyal, brave, intelligent, focused, handsome—”

“Balding,” he interjects.

“—Aerodynamic,” Tahl continues, and when Micah snickers, she starts to giggle.  In moments they are practically falling over each other laughing.

Then he is kissing her.  It’s not the sort of epic, panting, mewling affair that Tahl sometimes fantasized about; this is the soft, gentle press of lips, of quiet, mingled breath.

“Oh.  Uh.  I heard that,” Micah says, and it amuses her when she feels him blush.  “Well, this just simultaneously became the best and worst day of my life.”

She grins.  “Why’s that?”

“Well, I had been thinking for a few years now that you looked awfully nice, and I never remembered you looking that nice, even though, y’know, I’m still a man who loves a good set of breasts.”

Tahl decides that getting shot gives him a free pass from being swatted for that remark.

“Now that moment is here…and you feel—holy gods, Tahl, I still can’t believe you’ve had your eyes on me for _fifty fucking years_ —and the worst part of it is that I’m too drugged to even be capable of an erection,” Micah says in a mournful voice. 

She bursts out laughing.  “That makes it an awful day, huh?”

Micah makes a miffed sound.  “So much for sympathy!  Hells, a few centimeters to the left and I would be missing my plumbing entirely!”

Tahl leans into him, smiling and basking in the sense of _finally, finally now_ that has flooded her mind and heart.  “Did you think our relationship would be different if we were involved?  I’m still going to treat you like _you_ , Micah Giett, but there will be the addition of sex.”

“That’s worth almost dying for,” he says, and murmurs with pleasure when her hands find his scalp and start massaging in gentle circles.  “Okay, and that’s almost worth not being able to stand up on my own.  In either sense of the word.”

She gives his head a light slap.  “Was it so close, dearheart?”

“Dying?” Micah nods under her touch.  “Yeah.  If Obi-Wan hadn’t been there—if Obi-Wan wasn’t the Jedi Master he is, instead of the Padawan he should have been—it would have been a certain thing, T.  I wouldn’t be here.  None of them would have been able to save me.”

It is cold water on her psyche, that realization.  She had been told it was close, knew it was close, but a certainty?  “Gods, Micah,” Tahl whispers.  “I should have just thwapped you silly and told you how I felt long ago.  I would have let it go too late.”

Micah kisses her again, his hand resting against the skin of her neck, capturing some of her hair.  “I’m here, now.  Tell me now.”

“I love you,” Tahl whispers against his lips.  “I do.  I always have.”

“Neat,” Micah says, and she can feel his sudden rush of happiness, mingled joy and elation.  “I love you, too.  Wanna get married?”

She laughs.  “That’s your proposal?”

“Hey, I’m old and drugged,” Micah says, and kisses the end of her nose.  “I’ll come up with something better when I don’t feel like so much smashed Bantha.”

“All right.  Married and bonded,” Tahl says.

“That’s your answer?” Micah teases.

Tahl smiles.  “Yes, my favored idiot.  My answer is yes.”

**Author's Note:**

> Lyrics are from Alter Bridge - Wonderful Life


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